Content Distribution Client agent API

Content Distribution Client agents provide interaction between the Content Distribution system and the web server, proxy server, or application server that is the final consumer of the data transmitted by the Content Distribution system.

Client agents are installed on these nodes along with the Content Distribution Client software. When the Content Distribution system sends a content change notification to one of these nodes, the message is received by the Content Distribution Client, which propagates it to the client agent. The client agent then makes the changes required by the notification—for example, it updates data in the proxy cache or in a web server's document space.

Client agents are implemented as plug-ins for the web server at a Content Distribution Client node. Client agents are provided for the Apache HTTP Server, the Caching Proxy, and the IBM HTTP Server. An agent for WebSphere Application Server is provided as part of the Application Service at the Edge feature. If you want to use the Content Distribution system to distribute files to another type of server, you must implement your own Content Distribution Client agent for that system.

The Content Distribution Client agent software package also must be installed to enable staging servers, which provide changed files to Content Distribution Client nodes. However, this API cannot be used to enable an unsupported web server to function as a staging server.

Detailed information about the Content Distribution system is provided in the Caching Proxy Administration Guide.