High availability with the ODR feature

The ODR feature supports high availability access to the Intelligent Management service as the default behavior. High availability is supported in a multi-cell WebSphere® Application Server Network Deployment environment where each node in the cell is running the Intelligent Management service.

The ODR feature supports high availability as the default behavior. No special configuration is required other than to create the On Demand Router in the default domain and an ODR connector group with one member. When the DataPower® Gateway starts, the ODR feature connects to the Intelligent Management service with the host and port that is defined in the ODR connector group member.

For redundancy, define more than one member in the connection group. If only one member is defined and if that member is not available when the DataPower Gateway starts, the connection is not established.

When the ODR feature successfully connects, the ODR feature retrieves a list of valid target nodes that are running the Intelligent Management service in the cell. If the primary node fails for any reason, the ODR feature selects another node from the list of available nodes. The ODR feature establishes a connection to that node. Traffic continues to route and switches to the selected node even if that node was not configured as a connector. If the DataPower Gateway restarts, the list of target nodes does not persist, and the ODR feature must reconnect and retrieve the list of target nodes again.