Failover between Proxy Servers
Failover support between proxies is provided by creating an additional Proxy Server that is identical to the first Proxy Server. These are not the same as peer masters, the Proxy Servers have no knowledge of each other and must be managed through a load balancer.
A load balancer, such as WebSphere® Application
Server Edge Components, has a
virtual host name that applications use when sending updates to the directory. The load balancer is
configured to send those updates to only one server. If that server is down, or unavailable because
of a network failure, the load balancer sends the updates to the next available Proxy Server until
the first server is back on line and available. Refer to your load balancer product documentation
for information on how to install and configure the load balancing server.
Note: In a load-balanced proxy environment, if a Proxy Server fails, the
first operation sent to it fails and returns an error. All subsequent operations are sent to the
failover Proxy Server. The first operation that failed can be retried. It is not automatically sent
to the failover server.