Using external web servers with IBM Integration Bus
IBM® Integration Bus is frequently
a component in Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) patterns that include
external web servers and other HTTP solutions. Learn about the facilities
that IBM Integration Bus provides to help you
to configure your web server infrastructure, and which configuration
option best fits your existing topology.
The following diagram shows a web server topology that uses a web
server plug-in generated in WebSphere® Application
Server to
handle HTTP and HTTPS connections with an application server. The
web clients use HTTPS to communicate with the web server, and the WebSphere Application
Server plug-in forwards traffic
over HTTP to one of two application servers. This topology provides
simplified administration: the clients connect to a single endpoint,
and all client security is handled in a single place. The plug-in
can be used to handle load-balancing and failover between the two
application servers.

You can configure a
WebSphere Application
Server plug-in
so that it can be used, without any loss of functionality, with
IBM Integration Bus in the place of the application
server. You can then take advantage of the load-balancing and failover
capabilities of the plug-in to:
- Support many HTTP sessions
- Enable access to the integration node from multiple IP addresses
and ports
- Simplify the administration of your SOA topology
In the following diagram, IBM Integration Bus takes
the place of the application servers. HTTP traffic is handled by integration
node listeners on both systems.
The WebSphere Application
Server plug-in can be
used in the preceding cases, and in more complex scenarios, to:
- Implement load-balancing
- Implement clustering for failover
- Expose application server and web server services and files through
a single front end
- Manage security for all URLs in a single place and in a consistent
manner
- Set up a network dispatcher to multiple web service endpoints
You can use
IBM Integration Bus to achieve this type of configuration. Depending on your existing topology, use
IBM Integration Bus to generate the most appropriate type of configuration data:
- If your existing topology incorporates WebSphere Application
Server, generate a configuration file that can be read by a WebSphere Application
Server web server plug-in
- If your existing topology does not contain WebSphere Application Server, but uses an Apache web server, other than IBM HTTP Server, generate a configuration file that can be merged into your Apache mod_proxy configuration
- If your topology is not described by the previous options, you can use the IBM Integration
API to generate a per-integration node list of port and URL data in CSV format, which you can use in your web server configuration
Note: For details about support provided for configurations between
IBM Integration Bus and
IBM HTTP Server, see
IHS support issues.
Refer to the following topics to help you to generate the appropriate
configuration data for your web server topology: