Using Weighted Load Balancing.

What is a Weighted Load balancer?

Weighted load balancing can be configured in the PeopleSoft web server. The web server will direct the user requests to the application servers which have been configured in the configuration.properties file. By using the weighted load balancing we can control the percentage of requests which will be directed to a particular application server.

What is the syntax for configuring weighted load balancing?

The configuration.properties file of the web server is used to configure the application servers which will be listening for the web requests. For configuring weighted load balancing the below method is used,

psserver=Host1:Port1#Wt,Host2:Port2#Wt

 The weights of the application server can be rated from 1-10 where 1 is for low and 10 is for maximum load.

Example:

psserver=appserver1:9000#6,appserver2:9010#1

In the above example, the appserver1 will recieve 6 times more requests than the appserver2.

What is Jolt failover?

The failovers can be configured using the {} as below,

psserver=<host>:<port>#wt{failover servers}

By using weighted load balancing, we can configure for failover backup. 

There are 2 options,
Strict failover with weighted backup.
Strict failover with sequential backup.

Failover with weighted backup:
The failovers in this case are seperated by a comma as below,

psserver=Host1:Port1#Wt{Host3:Port3#Wt,Host4:Port4#Wt},Host2:Port2#Wt

Failover with sequential backup:

For setting up sequential backup multiple servers are configured separated by a semi colon as below,

 
psserver=Host1:Port1#Wt{Host3:Port3;Host4:Port4},Host2:Port2#Wt 

 
 

PeopleSoft Web Server

What is the PeopleSoft Web Server?

The PeopleSoft Web server is a Java-enabled web server which handles the browser transactions and also supports the PeopleSoft messaging technology. It basically contains a collection of servlets to handle a range of PeopleSoft transactions.

We will discuss on the below sections:

1. Server Software Elements:

When PeopleSoft software is installed, a variety of PeopleSoft web servlets are installed in the web server. A supported servlet container must be installed to use these servlets in our application. The below listed software run on the PeopleSoft web server,

a. Web Services -- The web services manage the web server software which should be Oracle WebLogic or IBM Websphere.
b. Servlet Engine -- The servlet engine is tied to the web services software, but in some cases it can be installed separately as well. The servlet engine contains all the PeopleSoft servlets.
c. Java Servlets -- Java is a platform independent programming language which is used for creating web based applications. The web server contains servlets which require java executables to be invoked.

2. The PeopleSoft Servlets:

The PeopleSoft servlets which are present in the web server are as below,

a. Portal Servlet -- The portal servlet is used to manage the requests and formatting when the client users access PeopleSoft via the Peopletools portal. It is used to handle homepage personalizations, content searches and content access.
b. Integration Gateway Servlet -- This servlet offers publish/subscribe messages between the message nodes. The gateway is used to handle PeopleSoft to PeopleSoft messages, third-party to PeopleSoft messages and PeopleSoft to third-party messages.
c. Report Repository Servlet --  This servlet helps in managing the output of the processes run using the batch server. It distributes the output reports such as crystal reports so that it can be accessed easily over the internet.

3. Oracle Jolt:

Oracle Jolt forwards the requests received by the PeopleSoft servlets to the application server. The Oracle Jolt is an extension of the tuxedo technology over the communication layer between the Java based web server and the C++ based application server. So basically the web browser sends HTTP request to the web server, the servlet in the web server connects to the Jolt port configured in the configuration.properties file of the web server and Oracle Jolt converts the request into a format understandable by Tuxedo which runs in the application server, which in turn will fire the SQLs against the database to fetch the desired output. The below Diagram explains the need for Oracle Jolt and Tuxedo.


Note: The Oracle Jolt and Tuxedo should both be installed in the application server.