Auto-scalable and highly-available Oracle WebLogic Cluster on top of containers
WebLogic Server consists of three main kinds of instances, required for running in VM:
- Administration Server - the central point you can configure and manage all cluster resources through
- Node Manager(s) - are responsible for adding and removing Managed Server instances
- Managed Server(s) - are used to host web applications, EJBs, web services and other resources.
Usually, each VM handles one Node Manager and several Managed Servers inside. Herewith, a single Administration Server is used for managing all of these instances within multiple VMs.
Deploying your Weblogic Cluster on top of containers instead of VMs implies running each Managed Server inside a separate isolated container, whilst containers themselves are provisioned by orchestration. This allows to get rid of the Node Manager instances (since by default they implement the role of VM agent, intended to control the number of MS instances inside parent VM) and get a much more simpler cluster topology.
As a result, upon migration to containers MS instances will be added & removed automatically, where each of them can be attached directly to Administration Server using container orchestration platform and a set of WSLT scripts.
Due to the described above, moving your Weblogic Cluster to containers will result in increased performance and better resources utilization. Among other benefits, with this solution you can:
- eliminate the necessity to reserve resources in advance (as Jelastic infrastructure ensures automatic vertical and horizontal scaling of containers, with no restart and downtime)
- run different application types in separate containers with advanced isolation
- simplify configurations and achieve easier cluster management due to removing the Node Manager element
- move your project across different hardware (provisioned by means of different environment regions within a single platform), or even between different clouds and/or vendors thanks to the advanced containers’ portability
In case you’d like to deploy your own clustered Weblogic solution on top of containers inside Jelastic, please contact us to get our technical experts’ assistance.