- Agent to policy server
- Failover
- Dynamic load balancing
- Policy server clustering
- Policy server to policy store
- Failover
- Policy server to user directory
- Failover
- Round robin load balancing
Failover is a redundancy mode. If the primary Policy Server fails, there is a backup Policy Server to take over policy operations. Failover is the default operation mode. When the Trusted Host initializes, it operates in Failover mode.
Load balancing lets the Trusted Host distribute requests across multiple Policy Servers, which provides faster access to Policy Servers and therefore, more efficient user authentication and authorization. It also prevents a single Policy Server from becoming overloaded with requests.
SiteMinder can spread LDAP queries over multiple LDAP servers to enable failover and load balancing. If configured for failover, SiteMinder uses one LDAP server to fulfill requests until that server fails to respond. When the default server does not respond, SiteMinder routes the request to the next server specified for failover. This process can be repeated over multiple servers. Once the default server is able to fulfill requests again, SiteMinder routes requests to the original server.
The above picture illustrates a hypothetical architecture block for a SiteMinder deployment. The identification of known architecture blocks, with specific numbers of web, policy and directory servers, whose throughput and cost are thoroughly understood is recommended. An increase demand should be dealt with by adding more infrastructure blocks to the production environment. When an addition is made always incorporate the necessary load balancing and failover strategies between the blocks.
Fail over is a redundancy mode. If the primary Policy Server fails, there is a backup Policy Server to take over policy operations. Failover is the default operation mode. When the Trusted Host initializes, it operates in Failover mode.
Round robin load balancing mode lets the Trusted Host distribute requests across multiple Policy Servers, which provides faster access to Policy Servers and therefore, more efficient user authentication and authorization. It also prevents a single Policy Server from becoming overloaded with requests.
