Adding multiple Gateway services that share a single DataPower appliance
You can use the Cloud Manager to create additional Gateway services that share an IBM® DataPower® appliance.
About this task
Adding multiple Gateway services on a single DataPower appliance can have the following benefits:
- provides increased utilization of DataPower appliances
- allows an external facing gateway service and an internal facing gateway service to each use a different network interface
- allows separation of different environments and data traffic, such as Development, Test, and Production, based on different network interfaces or ports
- allows a different DataPower domain to be set up per network zone on a DataPower appliance that spans multiple zones
The following tables provide settings information and examples of how to add multiple Gateway services on a single DataPower appliance. Note that the interfaces are installed in different subnets to avoid the communication issues described in the IBM Technote Multiple interfaces in the same subnet on DataPower should never be used.
| Network Interface | IP Address |
|---|---|
| eth0 (XML management interface) | 1.101.3.4 |
| eth1 | 1.102.3.4 |
| eth2 | 1.103.3.4 |
| eth3 | 1.104.3.4 |
| Cluster parameters | First service | Second service | Third service |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cluster name | Gateway service GS1 | Gateway service GS2 | Gateway service GS3 |
| Cluster address | 1.101.3.4 | 1.102.3.4 | 1.103.3.4 |
| Cluster port | 443 | 443 | 443 |
| Auto-generated domain | APIMgmt_1234567890 | APIMgmt_2345678901 | APIMgmt_3456789012 |
| Server name | Gateway server GS1 | Gateway server GS2 | Gateway server GS3 |
| Server address | 1.101.3.4 | 1.101.3.4 | 1.101.3.4 |
| Server port | 5550 | 5550 | 5550 |
| Server network interface | eth0 | eth1 | eth2 |
| Cluster parameters | First service | Second service | Third service |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cluster name | Gateway service GS4 | Gateway service GS5 | Gateway service GS6 |
| Cluster address | 1.104.3.4 | 1.104.3.4 | 1.104.3.4 |
| Cluster port | 443 | 444 | 445 |
| Auto-generated domain | APIMgmt_4567890123 | APIMgmt_5678901234 | APIMgmt_67890122345 |
| Server name | Gateway server GS4 | Gateway server GS5 | Gateway server GS6 |
| Server address | 1.101.3.4 | 1.101.3.4 | 1.101.3.4 |
| Server port | 5550 | 5550 | 5550 |
| Server network interface | eth3 | eth3 | eth3 |
- Log in to the Cloud Manager user interface.
- Select the Services tab.
- In the DataPower Services section, click the Service
Settings icon
for the required gateway service. The auto-generated domain name is displayed in the
DataPower Domain field.
Note: The Gateway server address and port parameters are used by the Management server to
communicate to the Gateway server for management purposes. The management server configures the DataPower appliance using the XML management interface. The
default server port is 5550, but the port depends on the XML management interface setup in the DataPower appliance. The Gateway server network interface is
used for data traffic to that Gateway server as part of the Gateway service that the server is added
to.
Before you add multiple Gateway services to a single DataPower appliance, consider the following requirements and restrictions:
- The combination of a network interface and a port must be unique for each domain on a given DataPower appliance.
- If there are other domains defined on the DataPower appliance that you plan to use, ensure that the setup for those domains does not conflict in terms of network interfaces or range of ports with the new domains that you plan to deploy in this API Connect cloud. You can contact your DataPower administrator to check the current configuration of network interfaces and ports.
- If required, you can create more network interfaces. For more information, see IBM DataPower version 6.0.1 product documentation.
- Do not add more than one Gateway server representing the same DataPower appliance to the same Gateway service. Since a given Gateway service has a single DataPower domain associated with it, a domain cannot be deployed to a given DataPower appliance more than once.
- The Gateway Cluster's Port Base value should represent a set of 10 ports and should not overlap with another service's set of 10 ports or with any ports in use by other non-API Management applications on the DataPower appliance.
- To enable the Gateway load balancer option in the Gateway service settings, ensure that each Gateway server representing a given DataPower appliance uses a different network interface. It is not sufficient for these different Gateway servers to only be differentiated by API data port used on the same network interface. The actual network interfaces must be different. The preferred approach is to use the External or no load balancer option. For more information about how to set up load balancing, see Load balancing in IBM API Connect.
Procedure
To share a DataPower appliance across Gateway services, complete the following steps:
- Plan the Gateway topology that you want to configure in your cloud. Decide how many Gateway services and Gateway servers that you want to add. Ensure that your plan accounts for the requirements and restrictions outlined in the previous section.
- Optional: Contact your DataPower administrator to check if there might be any usage conflict for the network interfaces and port numbers that you are planning to use. You might also need to request extra network interfaces.
- Add the number of Gateway services that you want to use. For more information, see Adding more Gateway services.
- Add Gateway servers to Gateway services to match your required topology. Make sure to wait for addition of a given gateway server to complete fully before using the Cloud Manager for any other tasks. For more information, see Adding a Gateway server.
- Verify that each added Gateway server is reported as active in the Cloud Manager.
- Create Catalogs that use the new Gateway services, and stage and publish Plans with APIs to these Catalogs.