Types of cluster, port, and server configurations for Dispatcher
There are many ways that you can configure Dispatcher to support your site.
1 cluster with 2 ports
If you have only one host name for your site to which all of your customers will connect, you can define a single cluster of servers. For each of these servers, configure a port through which Load Balancer communicates.
In this example for the Dispatcher component, one cluster is defined at www.productworks.com. This cluster has two ports: port 80 for HTTP and port 443 for SSL. A client making a request to http://www.productworks.com (port 80) goes to a different server than a client requesting https://www.productworks.com (port 443).
2 clusters, each with 1 port
Another way of configuring Load Balancer might be appropriate if you have a very large site with many servers dedicated to each protocol supported. In this case, you might want to define a cluster for each protocol with a single port but with many servers.
In this example for the Dispatcher component, two clusters are defined: www.productworks.com for port 80 (HTTP) and www.testworks.com for port 443 (SSL). A third way of configuring Load Balancer might be necessary if your site does content hosting for several companies or departments, each one coming into your site with a different URL. In this case, you might want to define a cluster for each company or department and then define any ports to which you want to receive connections at that URL, as shown in the configuration for 2 clusters, each with two ports.
2 clusters, each with 2 ports
In this example for the Dispatcher component, two clusters are defined with port 80 for HTTP and port 23 for Telnet for each of the sites at www.productworks.com and www.testworks.com.