Session replication/fail-over for medium sized tomcat farm

[Charles Richard <ch...@thelearningbar.com>]

Hi,

We are currently using a product called Terracotta to do session
fail-over/replication but are considering moving away from this product as
it doesn't seem to support Java 7 and Tomcat 7.

What products exist out there that would help with session
fail-over/replication?  I only know of 3:

- Terracotta
- Hazelcast
- Tomcat native session failover (is not recommended for many tomcat nodes)

I want to make sure i know all options before making a decision.

Thanks,
Charles

Re: Session replication/fail-over for medium sized tomcat farm

[Daniel Mikusa <dm...@pivotal.io>]

On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 9:17 AM, Charles Richard <
charles.r@thelearningbar.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 9:58 AM, Daniel Mikusa <dm...@pivotal.io> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 8:36 AM, Charles Richard <
> > charles.r@thelearningbar.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > We are currently using a product called Terracotta to do session
> > > fail-over/replication but are considering moving away from this product
> > as
> > > it doesn't seem to support Java 7 and Tomcat 7.
> > >
> > > What products exist out there that would help with session
> > > fail-over/replication?  I only know of 3:
> > >
> > > - Terracotta
> > > - Hazelcast
> > > - Tomcat native session failover (is not recommended for many tomcat
> > nodes)
> > >
> >
> > I think that recommendation is just for the DeltaManager.  You can use
> the
> > BackupManager with larger numbers of nodes since it's not replicating
> > session data to all of the nodes in the cluster.
> >
> > http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/cluster-manager.html
> >
> > In addition to that Redis and Memcached are two popular ways of sharing
> > session state.
> >
> > Dan
> >
> >  In the link you sent, it mentions the following:
>
> "Downside of the BackupManager: not quite as battle tested as the delta
> manager. "
>

Naturally this statement makes sense because DeltaManager is the default.
More people are going to use it.  BackupManager has been around for quite a
while though.  Looking at SVN, it's been almost 9 years.  I'd say that
gives it a certain amount of credibility.

http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/tomcat/tc8.0.x/trunk/java/org/apache/catalina/ha/session/BackupManager.java?revision=433703&view=markup


> Are you aware of companies using this for their Tomcat farms?
>

I have worked with multiple customers using it in production.  Not as
common as DeltaManager, but it's being used.

Dan



>
> Thanks,
> Charles
>
> >
> > >
> > > I want to make sure i know all options before making a decision.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Charles
> > >
> >
>

Re: Session replication/fail-over for medium sized tomcat farm

[Charles Richard <ch...@thelearningbar.com>]

On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 9:58 AM, Daniel Mikusa <dm...@pivotal.io> wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 8:36 AM, Charles Richard <
> charles.r@thelearningbar.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > We are currently using a product called Terracotta to do session
> > fail-over/replication but are considering moving away from this product
> as
> > it doesn't seem to support Java 7 and Tomcat 7.
> >
> > What products exist out there that would help with session
> > fail-over/replication?  I only know of 3:
> >
> > - Terracotta
> > - Hazelcast
> > - Tomcat native session failover (is not recommended for many tomcat
> nodes)
> >
>
> I think that recommendation is just for the DeltaManager.  You can use the
> BackupManager with larger numbers of nodes since it's not replicating
> session data to all of the nodes in the cluster.
>
> http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/cluster-manager.html
>
> In addition to that Redis and Memcached are two popular ways of sharing
> session state.
>
> Dan
>
>  In the link you sent, it mentions the following:

"Downside of the BackupManager: not quite as battle tested as the delta
manager. "

Are you aware of companies using this for their Tomcat farms?

Thanks,
Charles

>
> >
> > I want to make sure i know all options before making a decision.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Charles
> >
>

Re: Session replication/fail-over for medium sized tomcat farm

[Daniel Mikusa <dm...@pivotal.io>]

On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 8:36 AM, Charles Richard <
charles.r@thelearningbar.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> We are currently using a product called Terracotta to do session
> fail-over/replication but are considering moving away from this product as
> it doesn't seem to support Java 7 and Tomcat 7.
>
> What products exist out there that would help with session
> fail-over/replication?  I only know of 3:
>
> - Terracotta
> - Hazelcast
> - Tomcat native session failover (is not recommended for many tomcat nodes)
>

I think that recommendation is just for the DeltaManager.  You can use the
BackupManager with larger numbers of nodes since it's not replicating
session data to all of the nodes in the cluster.

http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/cluster-manager.html

In addition to that Redis and Memcached are two popular ways of sharing
session state.

Dan


>
> I want to make sure i know all options before making a decision.
>
> Thanks,
> Charles
>