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Solution Guide

Solution Guide

Deploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

This guide focuses on defining the process for deploying a multi domain Oracle E-Business Suite environment with Citrix NetScaler

2Citrix.com | Solution Guide | Deploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Solution GuideDeploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Citrix NetScaler is a world-class product with the proven ability to load balance, accelerate, optimize, and secure enterprise applications.

For several years, Citrix has completed certifications and provided deployment guides for key enterprise applications. NetScaler’s rich application delivery capabilities significantly enhance the performance of these applications. With a comprehensive feature set, It provides availability, scalability, optimization and security for Oracle E-Business Suite deployments.

Introduction

This solution allows a multi-domain E-Business suite environment to be hosted with a single IP address, thus eliminating the need for multiple IP addresses; this solution also eliminates the requirement of multiple public IP addresses for different E-Business server domains. Oracle E-Business Server 12c is one of the industry's best application servers for building and deploying enter-prise Java EE applications with support for new features for lowering cost of operations, improving performance, enhancing scalability and supporting the Oracle Applications portfolio.

In this deployment, we will configure a content switching virtual server on NetScaler to enable multiple domain access with different FQDNs on a single IP address.

Configuration

3Citrix.com | Solution Guide | Deploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Solution GuideDeploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Recommended Product Versions

Product Version

Oracle E-Business Suite Server 12c

NetScaler VPX 11.0 (Enterprise/Platinum License)

NetScaler features

The following NetScaler features are discussed in this deployment guide. • Load balancing• SSL offload• Content SwitchingOther considerations• Make sure you have installed, at a minimum, one license on the NetScaler appliance.• Set the time zone and a NTP (Network Time Protocol) server, and check the date and time on the NetScaler

virtual appliance, as. E-Business Server server connections can be very sensitive to time differences.• Configure your DNS settings properly: Note that for certificate-based authentication, all addressable hosts

that are part of the network setup should have resolvable domain names, not just IP addresses.

4Citrix.com | Solution Guide | Deploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Solution GuideDeploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Solution Description

Configuring the Multi-Domain environment

Step 1 - Define the content switching (CS) and load balancing virtual servers (LB vservers)

Log on to the NetScaler GUI. On the Configuration tab, navigate to Traffic Management > Content Switching > Virtual Servers. Here, set the parameters as described in the examples below.

In the following examples, we are load balancing two E-Business suite servers, ebizhr.ctxnssfb.com and ebizlb.ctxnssfb.com, with content switching virtual server ebiz_cs.

This content switching virtual server will redirect requests, on the basis of their source IP addresses, to the appropriate load balancing virtual server. In the setup used as an example in this article, users requesting the E-Business suite HR portal are redirected to the ebizhr LB vserver, while users trying to access the general portal at ebizlb.ctxnssfb.com are sent to the ebizlb LB vserver.

5Citrix.com | Solution Guide | Deploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Solution GuideDeploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Note that the protocol here is presented as SSL. Therefore, the server must have a valid server certificate.

• Set the IP address type to the IP address setting and the IP address field to a valid, available IP address. This is the address that will be used to access the E-Business suite deployment front end. This IP address should be linked to the FQDN if it is in use for the E-business suite server.

• Leave the other settings as they are.

Step 2 - Configure the LB vservers

Log into the NetScaler GUI. On the Configuration tab, navigate to Traffic Management > Load Balancing > Virtual Servers.

Create the virtual servers as shown in the list below.

Now configure the individual load balancing virtual servers for the Exchange services. These servers will be bound to the content switching policies that we will create later. These servers are configured as follows:

LB vserver name Specific Settings

Ebiz_lb (ebizlb.ctxnssfb.com) Least Connection Load Balancing, NA

Ebiz_hr_lb (ebizhr.ctxnssfb.com) Least Connection Load Balancing, NA

When defining a new LB vserver, you are presented with the settings screen. Here, set the protocol to SSL and the IP Address Type to Non Addressable (because these LB vservers will be accessed through the CS vserver).

6Citrix.com | Solution Guide | Deploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Solution GuideDeploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

After you click Continue, the Basic Settings screen for the LB vserver appears. Here, you can change settings such as the session persistence, authentication, and load balancing methods. Set session persistence to SOUR-CEIP and the load balancing method to LEASTCONNECTION for both virtual servers.

For more information on these features, see https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/netscaler/11.html

To enable an SSL-based LB vserver, you should add an SSL certificate and key pair. You can either generate a self-signed certificate on the NetScaler appliance or use a certificate signed by a Certificate Authority (CA).If a certificate-key pair is already available, you can add it by navigating to SSL > Certificates and clicking the Add button.

You can generate a self-signed certificate as follows: 1. Log on to the GUI of your NetScaler.2. Select Traffic Management > SSL.3. On the right, under Tools, select Server Certificate Wizard.4. Follow the prompts in the wizard to

5. Generate the private key.6. Generate the Certificate Signing Request (CSR).7. Generate the Certificate (using the ns-root.cer NetScaler root certificate).8. Save the Certificate and Key pair.

Alternatively, if a certificate and key pair is already available, the same can be added by navigating to SSL>Certificates and clicking on the Add button. For more details refer to http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX109260To improve site security and achieve an A/A+ rating on the SSLLabs.com evaluation, refer to https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/06/09/scoring-an-a-at-ssllabs-com-with-citrix-netscaler-2016-update/

7Citrix.com | Solution Guide | Deploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Solution GuideDeploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Step 3 – Define LB vserver service group binding

Click the No Load Balancing Virtual Server Service Binding option in the Service and Service Groups section, or alternatively, click Services in the Traffic Management > Load Balancing subsection, and then click the Add but-ton.

Every LB service is linked to a server, which can be either a new server or an existing server already defined in the Servers subsection under Load Balancing. You can also create service groups, which are groups of services. An LB vserver can use a set of services or a service group.

For the configuration used as an example in this article, specify the names of the two E-Business suite ser-vices (ebizlb and ebizhr), assign each service the IP address of a server (enter the address of a new server or choose an existing server's address from a list), and specify each server's protocol. In our example, the IPs are 10.105.157.139 for the general LB vserver (ebizlb) and 10.105.157.140 for the HR LB vesrver (ebizhr).

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Solution GuideDeploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Enable Health Monitoring if you would like to have NetScaler poll the server periodically to verify its health. If Health Monitoring is disabled, the appliance shows the server as UP at all times. Bind these services to the ap-propriate LB vservers and confirm that they have been bound correctly by checking the Load Balancing Virtual Server Basic Settings screen.

Note: After you create an LB vserver, it appears on the right side of the configuration screen, which is the same as the one at Traffic Management > Load Balancing > Virtual Servers.

Step 4 – Configure Content Switching Policies

Next, log on to the NetScaler GUI And configure content switching policies that redirect requests to the correct load balancing virtual server. TOn the Configuration tab, navigate to Traffic Management > Content Switching> Virtual Servers.Select the CS vserver created earlier, click Edit, and set up the following content switching actions –

9Citrix.com | Solution Guide | Deploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Solution GuideDeploying a Multi-Domain E-Business Suite Environment with NetScaler

Note that the action for each of these CS vservers should point to the load balancing virtual servers created for each of these services in Step 2.

This completes multidomain environment configuration for Oracle E-Business Suite 2016. Users navigating to the CS vserver’s IP address will be redirected to the internal domain servers on the basis of requested URL.

Note: Make sure that the two FQDNs (ebizhr.ctxnssfb.com and ebizlb.ctxnssfb.com) are bound to the same IP ad-dress (the IP address of the CS vserver) in your DNS server.

VerificationTo verify that the configuration functions as expected, open a browser and access the CS vserver. In the example used in this article, go to https://ebizhr.ctxnssfb.com or https://ebizlb.ctxnssfb.com. The CS vserver should redi-rect you to the logon page for the appropriate E-Business suite server.

Conclusion NetScaler enables highly available Oracle E-Business Server deployments with its load balancing capabilities. With NetScaler, enterprises can enable a host of additional capabilities including, but not limited to, authentica-tion offload, end point analysis checks, selective server access, URL rewrites, compression, caching, and front end optimizations.

With NetScaler, enterprises can not only enable high availability for their E-Business environments, but also extend capabilities for security and optimized access. The NetScaler policy engine enables enterprises to deploy any specific use cases that they might require, making the NetScaler solution flexible and robust enough to meet all enterprise requirements.

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