I have defined a Websphere 8.5 cluster made up of two Nodes, now I'd like to put an HTTP Server in front of the cluster which balances calls. When I add a new Web Server from the console, I'm allowed to choose either Node1 or Node2, but I'd like provide an array of Nodes.
Coming from a Tomcat MOD_JK background, I used to do that so that the balancer choose which node will server the call.
Should I manually edit the configuration and add a reference to all Nodes (how?) ?
Thanks
Louis
Speaking from experience with earlier versions of WebSphere, you define multiple such Web Servers. That is, define one for Node1, then a second one for Node2.
Then when you deploy your application, select both the Application Server Cluster you want to deploy it to and all the Web Servers you want to participate in that cluster.
If you do this, the WebSphere plugin running under each of the Web Servers will maintain Session affinity by routing the user to the same Cluster member as long as it's available. See http://ibm.co/S2UKKn and http://ibm.co/QIs0Sg .
To actually use multiple Web Servers, you will of course still need some kind of IP load balancer or sprayer. The WebSphere product family has one in its Edge Components ( https://ibm.biz/BdxZwg ), but there are many such software products or hardware devices.