The BIG-IP system provides intelligent traffic management
and fail-over for Oracle E-Business Suite application servers. Through advanced
health checking capabilities, the BIG-IP LTM recognizes when resources are
unavailable or under-performing and directs traffic to another resource.
The BIG-IP LTM can also track Oracle E-Business Suite
Application Server end-user sessions, enabling the application server to
maintain client session data. The following diagram shows an example deployment
with Oracle E-Business Suite and the BIG-IP LTM system.
Steps to do by
F5 Network Admin.
1. Creating a HTTP health monitor
§ . On the Main tab, expand Local Traffic, and then click
Monitors. The Monitors screen opens.
§ Click the Create button. The New Monitor screen opens.
§ In the Name box, type a name for the Monitor. In our example, we
type oracle-erp-http
§ From the Type list, select HTTP
§ The HTTP Monitor configuration options appear
§ In the Configuration section, in the Interval and Timeout boxes,
type an Interval and Timeout. We recommend at least a 1:3 +1 ratio between the
interval and the timeout (for example, the default setting has an interval of 5
and an timeout of 16). In our example, we use a Interval of 30 and a Timeout of
91.
§ In the Send String and Receive Rule sections, you can add an
optional Send String and Receive Rule specific to the device being checked.
Click the Finished button. The new monitor is added to
the Monitor list
Creating
the Oracle E-Business Suite pool
The next step is to create a pool on the
BIG-IP LTM system for the Oracle E-Business Suite devices. A BIG-IP pool is a
set of devices grouped together to receive traffic according to a load
balancing method. To create the Oracle E-Business Suite pool 1. On the Main
tab, expand Local Traffic, and then click Pools. The Pool screen opens.
To create the Oracle E-Business Suite
pool
1. On the Main tab, expand Local Traffic, and then click Pools. The
Pool screen opens.
2. In the upper right portion of the screen, click the Create
button. The New Pool screen opens. Note: For more (optional) pool
configuration settings, from the Configuration list, select Advanced. Configure
these settings as applicable for your network.
3. In the Name box, enter a name for your pool. In our example, we
use oracle-erp.
4. In the Health Monitors section, select the name of the monitor
you created in the Creating a HTTP health monitor section, and click the Add
(<button. In our example, we select oracle-erp-http .
5. From the Load Balancing Method list, select Predictive (node).
This is the load balancing method recommended by Oracle.
6. For this pool, we leave the Priority Group Activation Disabled
7. In the New Members section, make sure the New Address option
button is selected
8. In the Address box, add the first server to the pool. In our
example, we type 10.133.17.150
9. In the Service Port box, type the appropriate port for your
Oracle E-Business Suite server. In our example, we type 8000.
10. Click the Add button to add the member to the list.
1. Repeat steps 9-11 for each server you want to add to the pool.
In our example, we repeat these steps once for 10.133.17.151.
2. Click the Finished button (see Figure 1.3).
Creating
Oracle E-Business Suite profiles
Creating an
HTTP profile The first new profile we create is an HTTP profile. The HTTP
profile contains numerous configuration options for how the BIG-IP LTM system
handles HTTP traffic. For deployments where the majority of users accessing
Oracle Portal are connecting across a WAN, F5 recommends enabling compression
and caching on the BIG-IP LTM by using a profile introduced in BIG-IP version
9.4 called http-wan-optimized-compression-caching (if you are using LTM version
9.4.2 or later, we recommend using http-acceleration). This profile uses specific
compression and caching (among other) settings to optimize traffic over the
WAN. Note that to properly use this profile, you need to have compression and
caching licensed on the BIG-IP LTM. For more information on licensing, contact
your sales representative. If you are not using version 9.4, or do not have
compression or caching licensed, you can choose the default HTTP parent
profile, or one of the other optimized HTTP parent profiles.
To
create a new HTTP profile
1. On the
Main tab, expand Local Traffic, and then click Profiles. The HTTP Profiles
screen opens.
2. In the
upper right portion of the screen, click the Create button. The New HTTP
Profile screen opens.
3. In the
Name box, type a name for this profile. In our example, we type oracle-erp-http-opt.
4. From the
Parent Profile list, select http-wan-optimized-compression-caching. The profile
settings appear.
5. Check the
Custom box for Content Compression, and leave Content List selected.
6. In the
Content List section, add the following items to the existing entries in the
Content Type box one at a time, each followed by clicking Include: •
application/pdf • application/vnd.ms-powerpoint • application/vnd.ms-excel •
application/msword • application/vnd.ms-publisher We add these MIME types to
ensure these highly compressible document types are compressed.
7. In the RAM
Cache section, click the Custom box for the URI Caching row.
8. From the
URI Caching list, select URI List.
9. In the URI
box, type the URI of the login, logout and the OA.jsp pages, and then click the
Exclude button after each entry. In our example, we type /OA_HTML/AppsLogin,
/OA_HTML/AppsLogout, and /OA_HTML/OA.jsp. If your users are accessing the
Oracle E-Business Suite implementation through Oracle Portal, you must also
exclude: /pls/portal/!PORTAL.wwpro_app_provider.do_object_signon
10. Modify
any of the other settings as applicable for your network. In our example, we
leave the settings at their default levels. 11. Click the Finished button.
Creating
the TCP profiles
The next
profiles we create are the TCP profiles. If most of the Oracle E-Business Suite
users are accessing the portal via a Local Area Network, we recommend using the
tcp-lan-optimized (for server-side TCP connections) parent profile. If the
majority of the Portal users are accessing the system from remote or home
offices, we recommend using an additional TCP profile, called tcp-wan-optimized
(for client side TCP connections). In our example, we leave these profiles at
their default levels; you can configure any of the options as applicable for
your network. 1 - 9
Creating
the LAN optimized TCP profile
First we configure the LAN optimized profile.
If you are not using version 9.4 or do not want to use this optimized profile,
you can choose the default TCP parent profile.
To
create a new TCP profile
1. On the Main tab, expand Local Traffic, and
then click Profiles. The HTTP Profiles screen opens.
2. On the Menu bar, from the Protocol menu,
click tcp.
3. In the
upper right portion of the screen, click the Create button. The New TCP Profile
screen opens.
4. In the
Name box, type a name for this profile. In our example, we type oracle-erp-tcp-lan.
5. From the Parent Profile list, select
tcp-lan-optimized if you are using BIG-IP LTM version 9.4 or later; otherwise
select tcp.
6. Modify any of the settings as applicable
for your network. In our example, we leave the settings at their default
levels.
7. Click the Finished button. Creating the WAN
optimized TCP profile Now we configure the WAN optimized profile. Remember, if
most users are accessing the portal via the LAN, you do not need to create this
profile.
To create a new TCP WAN optimized profile
1. On the
Main tab, expand Local Traffic, and then click Profiles. The HTTP Profiles
screen opens.
2.
On the Menu bar, from the Protocol menu, click tcp.
3. In the
upper right portion of the screen, click the Create button. The New TCP Profile
screen opens.
4. In the
Name box, type a name for this profile. In our example, we type oracle-erp-tcp-wan.
5. From the
Parent Profile list, select tcp-wan-optimized.
6. Modify any of the settings as applicable
for your network. In our example, we leave the settings at their default
levels.
7. Click the Finished button.
Creating persistence profile
The final
profile we create is a persistence profile. For Oracle E-Business Suite, we use
Cookie Persistence in Insert mode, with an Oracle-recommended timeout value of
12 hours.
To create a
new cookie persistence profile based on the default profile
1. On the Main tab, expand Local Traffic, and
then click Profiles. The HTTP Profiles screen opens.
2. On the
Menu bar, click Persistence. The Persistence Profiles screen opens.
3. In the
upper right portion of the screen, click the Create button. The New Persistence
Profile screen opens.
4. In the Name box, type a name for this
profile. In our example, we type oracle-erp-cookie.
5. From the Persistence Type list, select
Cookie. The configuration options for cookie persistence appear.
6. In the Expiration row, check the Custom
box. Clear the Session Cookie box, and the Expiration options appear. In the
Hours box, type 12. 7. Click the Finished button
Creating
a OneConnect profile
The
next profile we create is a OneConnect profile. With OneConnect enabled, client
requests can utilize existing, server-side connections, thus reducing the
number of server-side connections that a server must open to service those
requests. This can provide significant performance improvements for Oracle
implementations. For more information on
OneConnect, see the BIG-IP LTM documentation. In our example, we leave all the
options at their default settings. You can configure these options as
appropriate for your network.
To
create a new OneConnect profile
1. On the Main tab, expand Local Traffic, and
then click Profiles. The HTTP Profiles screen opens.
2. On the
Menu bar, from the Other menu, click OneConnect. The Persistence Profiles
screen opens.
3. In the
upper right portion of the screen, click the Create button. The New HTTP
Profile screen opens.
4. In the
Name box, type a name for this profile. In our example, we type oracle-erp-oneconnect.
5. From the Parent Profile list, ensure that
oneconnect is selected.
6. Modify any of the other settings as
applicable for your network. In our example, we leave the settings at their
default levels.
7. Click the
Finished button.
Creating
the Oracle E-Business Suite virtual server
Next, we configure a virtual server that
references the profiles and pool you created in the preceding procedures.
To
create the virtual server
1. On the Main tab, expand Local Traffic, and
then click Virtual Servers. The Virtual Servers screen opens.
2. In the
upper right portion of the screen, click the Create button. The New Virtual
Server screen opens.
3. In the
Name box, type a name for this virtual server. In our example, we type oracle-erp-vs.
4. In the Destination
section, select the Host option button.
5. In the
Address box, type the IP address of this virtual server. In our example, we use
10.133.17.201 6. In the Service Port box, type 80.
7. From the
Configuration list, select Advanced. The Advanced configuration options appear.
8. Leave the
Type list at the default setting: Standard.
9. From the
Protocol Profile (Client) list select the name of the profile you created in
the Creating the WAN optimized TCP profile section. If you did not create a WAN
optimized profile, select the LAN optimized profile as in the following Step.
In our example, we select oracle-erp-tcp-wan.
10. From the
Protocol Profile (Server) list, select the name of the profile you created in
the Creating the LAN optimized TCP profile section. In our example, we select
oracle-ebs-tcp-lan.
11. From the
OneConnect Profile list, select the name of the profile you created in Creating
a OneConnect profile. In our example, we select oracle-erp-oneconnect.
12. From the
HTTP Profile list, select the name of the profile you created in the Creating
an HTTP profile section. In our example, we select oracle-erp-http-opt
(see Figure 1.6).
13. From the
SNAT Pool list, select Automap.
14. In the
Resources section, from the Default Pool list, select the pool you created in
the Creating the Oracle E-Business Suite pool section. In our example, we
select oracle-ebs.
15.
From the Default Persistence Profile list, select the persistence profile you
created in the Creating persistence profile section. In our example, we select oracle-erp-cookie
16. Click the
Finished button. The BIG-IP LTM configuration for the Oracle E-Business Suite
configuration is now complete.
For Oracle
ERP to run on Load Balancer with SSL enabled, the following configuration
changes are to be done at ERP level :
1.
Login to Application Nodes and change the following
parameters in the Context File (xml):
a. Parameter : s_webentryurlprotocol
Value : https
b.
Parameter : s_webentryhost
Value : virtaul_hostname
c. Parameter : s_webentrydomain
Value : company.com
d. Parameter : s_active_webport
Value : 443
e. Parameter : s_login_page
f.
Parameter : s_external_url
Value : https://xxx.com
g.
Parameter : s_enable_sslterminator
Value : remove the '#'
2.
Run autoconfig
on all the application nodes one by one.
cd $ADMIN_SCRIPTS_HOME
./adautocfg.sh
Enter
apps password when prompted
3.
Start Application services, check Application access with
the load balance URL.
