Proxy server redirection for IBM Spectrum Symphony clients
Configure IBM® Spectrum Symphony clients to send workload to IBM Spectrum Symphony using a proxy server (an intermediate server with a hostname or IP address or its own), rather than send directly to management hosts in the IBM Spectrum Symphony cluster. The proxy server forwards these client requests to the appropriate IBM Spectrum Symphony management hosts. Clients never interact with the management hosts as the proxy server handles all interactions between the IBM Spectrum Symphony cluster, management hosts, and the clients. For example, a proxy server is a ideal for clients to discover and connect to IBM Spectrum Symphony management hosts on the cloud.
EGO and SOAM commands send network packages to the proxy server
- The egosh EGO command.
- SOAM commands, such as soamdeploy, soamcontrol, soamreg, soamunreg, soamview, soamlogon, and soamlog.
Identifying management hosts
When you set up a proxy server, on each client accessing the cluster, you create and maintain a proxy.conf file that maps the IBM Spectrum Symphony management host destination (either host name or IP address) to the proxy server, allowing the client to discover the management hosts to which to connect. In this proxy.conf file, you can specify to use physical (actual) hostnames or IP addresses, or use virtual hostnames and IP addresses. Your choice can depend on your cluster's business needs and environment:- Stable hosts: use physical hostnames or IP addresses
- If your hosts are fairly static and you do not anticipate cluster or host changes (or changes to their names or IP addresses), you can use the actual physical hostnames and IP addresses in your proxy.conf file. In the case that a host does change, remember to also manually reflect that change in the proxy.conf file on each client.
- Frequently changed hosts: use virtual hostnames or IP addresses
- If your hosts change frequently, to avoid frequent maintenance of updating the
proxy.conf file on each client, then you can
use virtual hostnames or IP addresses in the file for the IBM Spectrum Symphony session director (SD) and
session manager (SSM). For other services (such as VEMKD, EGO service controller, and repository
server (RS)), use physical host
information.
For example, when an IBM Spectrum Symphony cluster is deleted and re-provisioned, this can change the hostnames or IP addresses of the management hosts in the cluster, so configuring virtual information during the initial set-up eliminates the need for future maintenance to the proxy.conf file on each client to capture these host changes.
To use virtual information in the proxy.conf file for the IBM Spectrum Symphony session director (SD) and session manager (SSM), first determine the virtual hostname or IP address (which never changes) of each management host, and then use that virtual information in your proxy.conf file, instead of the actual physical information. This way, you set the virtual information once in each of the client-side proxy.conf files, and avoid maintaining proxy server configuration if management host hostnames or IP addresses change later on.