Server Load Balancing with SAP and ACE

Server Load Balancing with SAP and ACE

This guide provides configuration best practices for application optimization with SAP Business Suite and the Cisco data center solutions, including the Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE), Wide Area Application Services (WAAS), and the Cisco Application Analysis Solution (AAS). This guide describes how to accomplish the following: • Deploy ACE into an existing server farm with minimal cost and disruption through the use of virtual contexts and role-based access control • Optimize ACE server load balancing features for SAP including health monitoring and session persistence • Achieve high availability with stateful failover on the ACE • Analyze SAP transactions using the Cisco AAS • Evaluate alternative deployment schemes for SAP with Cisco WAAS. ACE can look deep into the HTTP header to make forwarding decisions based on other variables besides server load and availability. By directing requests to servers tuned for certain types of content, web browser or language support, the server environment can be further optimized. Network Design and Virtualization. As shown, the ACE context plays a central role in this configuration. For the servers, it provides server load balancing, SSL offload, and TCP connection reduction as well as security.

Note that the SAP enterprise portal uses port 51000. ACE receives requests to the VIP on port 80 and translates them to port 51000 using the server farm configuration shown above. Role-Based Access Control. Two of these roles, security and SLB-admin, are leveraged here for the SAP environment. In this way, security personnel can manage access control without the possibility of mistakenly disrupting the server load balancing configuration, and vice versa. Monitoring Server Health. Indirect Application Failures. SAP and Session Persistence. Persistence and High Availability.

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