SAP Webdispatcher with dual stack installation

[Former Member]

Dear Community,

we are running a dual stack installation of BI7 (not double stack) i.e. we have seperate instances for ABAP and J2EE. In SAP Webdispatcher, there is only one parameter ms/http_port which we can either configure for ABAP Message Server OR Java Message Server port. But with this, we can only connect to either ABAP or J2EE Instance, but not to both simultaneously.

In a double stack scenario, the ICM has access to the J2EE engine, but in our dual stack scenario things look a bit different....

Maybe you can help us out here?

Thanks and best regards,

Frank.

[Former Member]

Hello Frank,

If you have separate ABAP and JAVA instances, you cannot use one Web Dispatcher to support both.

If you can have a Portal as access point, one Web Dispatcher would be sufficient.

Best regards,

Victor

[Former Member]

Hi Victor,

how can you achieve a webdispatcher configuration where the webdispatcher is connected to the portal and inside this portal there are iviews defined which connect to another ABAP instance with a webdynpro for ABAP application?

Regards,

Pascal

[Former Member]

Hi Victor,

I did not try it (we have only dual stacks installed) but why should not it be possible ?

The syntax of the ICM parameter is :

Syntax:

icm/HTTP/j2ee_<xx> = PREFIX=<uri prefix>, [HOST=<host>,]

PORT=<port>, CONN=<number of connections>

[, SSLENC=<n>, TYPE=<t>, CRED=<file>,

SPORT=<HTTPS port> ]

If you tell the J2EE HOST to the ICM, why is it not possible for the ICM to redirect the java urls to the J2EE engine ?

Best Regards,

Olivier

[Former Member]

Hi Olivier,

good idea, I also came up with this parameter, the problem is this remark:

Other Parameters Affected or Dependent:

Setting this parameter is only meaningful if the parameter

rdisp/j2ee_start is also set.

and rdisp/j2ee_start does only make sense when you've a double-stack...

Regards,

Pascal

[Former Member]

Hi Pascal,

Thanks for the information.

Ok, that's the reason but I still think that SAPcould make it work if they want.

That could be a suggestion for them ?

Regards,

Olivier

[Former Member]

Hello Pascal,

It works this way and is a recommended landscape. When Portal is used, you don't have direct access to the backend systems, so one Web Dispatcher is sufficient.

Best regards,

Victor

[Former Member]

Hi Victor,

what do you mean with you don't have direct access? When navigating to a backend system over the portal, you still need "direct access" to it as the browser request from the client goes directly to the backend system (portal is no application proxy). Or did I misunderstand you?

regards,

pascal

[Former Member]

Hi Pascal,

Portal is "application proxy" if you like to call it this way.

The Webpage is assembled by "Page Builder" component of the Portal and retured to the client Web browser.

The browser requests do NOT go directly to the backend systems.

Best regards,

Victor

[Former Member]

Okay, but then you've to adapt your application to the page builder API, so what do you do with standard webdynrpo for abap apps developed by SAP?

regards,

Pascal

[Former Member]

Hi Pascal,

Basically you create iView (within Portal) based on SAP Web Dynpro of ABAP.

You can also define iViews for SAP transactions, IAC applications, BSP applications, BEx Web application, Crystal reports...

More details are available in the SAPEP course.

Best regards,

Victor

[Former Member]

Yes, but then the request is going directly from the browser to the backend system if you don't use a webdispatcher

[Former Member]

The request would NOT go directly to the backend systems. Portal is kind of "application proxy" in this sense.

If we cannot agree with each other, it is ok. We don't have to flood the forum just to confirm it.

Best regards,

Victor

BTW, I got certification as Portal consultant.

[Former Member]

Hi Victor,

I feel a little bit strange and confused now. As a portal consultant, one should know that when you open an iview which connects to a backend system, the request is going directly from the browser to the backend system. It would make life a lot easier if it weren't like this -> no more firewall and VPN problems due to closed ports, just use the portal and everything is going over there, what a wonderful world...

I think for a portal consultant like you (and me...) it's good to know how tools like httpwatch work, so please try it out yourself and hopefully you'll learn something very essential about the portal architecture and from where to where requests and responses are going over the network.

I think it's enough said now from my side. I just wanted to clarify this to not confuse others with misleading information here.

Regards,

Pascal

[Former Member]

To come back to the original question: Anybody modified the message server file /msgserver/text/logon manually (combine message server file ABAP + JAVA) and put it with wdisp/server_info_location to the filesystem? Then I could imagine we can fake a double stack system so that one webdispatcher could server both instances...

(http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/1f/63af32f15e7d479227a9528c5def2a/content.htm)

Regards,

Pascal

[Former Member]

If you mean to use a text file instead of asking the message server, it could work but a big problem would be that the server list would be no more dynamic.

If one of the app servers crashes, the list of servers would not be updated and the load balancing would still send https requests to a stopped server.

Not very robust...

Regards,

Olivier

[Former Member]

Hi Olivier,

you're right, but we only have one application server per instance (I know, i know...;-)

Well, I think I'll give it a try...I keep you posted.

Regards,

Pascal

[Former Member]

Dear Victor,

We have ITS iviews that connects to ECC 6.0 system.

Portal is on the internet via WebDispartcher .But we can not see ECC 6.0 transaction on the internet on the portal?