Windows

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Windows

This section contains the following topics:

WISA - WISA and WISAx4 Applications (Windows/IIS/SQL/ASP.NET)

WISA - Two-tier Non-scalable Web Application

Latest Version: 2.0.4-1

WISA - 2-tier Non-scalable Web Application

WISAx4 - Scalable WISA Web Application

Latest Version: 2.0.4-1

WISAx4 - Scalable WISA Web Application

The WISA and WISAx4 reference applications are two-tier web applications that allow you to easily port your applications.

The WISA application consists of a single web server, database server, file server, gateway for external network access, and input gateway for user access. The application also contains a monitor that the maintainer can use to monitor application data (for example, CPU/memory usage, website hit rate, and so on).

The WISAx4 adds a load-balanced web tier that contains a load balancer and four web servers. WISAx4 is designed for applications that incur heavy traffic, such as being accessed by hundreds of users.

Important! WISA and WISAx4 are not automatically installed on a grid. See the installation reference for more information.

Boundary

Properties

Property Name	Type	Description
in_ip	IP	IP address where the WISA application provides services to users. This property is mandatory.
out_ip	IP	IP address used by the WISA application to access an external network outside of the application (that is, the internet). This property is mandatory.
netmask	IP	Network mask for the network on which in_ip and out_ip reside. This property is mandatory.
gateway	IP	Defines the IP network gateway (router) for all outgoing traffic to the external network using in_ip and out_ip. This property is mandatory.
dns1	IP	IP address of the primary DNS server used for host name resolutions. This property is mandatory.
dns2	IP	IP address of the backup DNS server used for host name resolutions. Default: empty (not used).
mon_standby	Int	Specifies whether application monitoring is disabled upon application start for the WISA application. If non-zero, monitoring is disabled. If zero, monitoring is enabled. The monitoring can be enabled at runtime by manually starting the mon appliance. Default: 1 (disabled).
srv2_standby	Int	Specifies whether the second IIS server is in standby mode. If non-zero, the second IIS server is in standby mode. If zero, it is not in standby mode. This property is valid only for the WISAx4 application. Default: 1 (standby mode).
srv3_standby	Int	Specifies whether the third IIS server is in standby mode. If non-zero, the third IIS server is in standby mode. If zero, it is not in standby mode. This property is valid only for the WISAx4 application. Default: 1 (standby mode).
srv4_standby	Int	Specifies whether the fourth IIS server is in standby mode. If non-zero, the fourth IIS server is in standby mode. If zero, it is not in standby mode. This property is valid only for the WISAx4 application. Default: 1 (standby mode).

Important! The IP addresses configured in the in_ip and out_ip properties must be IP addresses available on your grid. You can find them, and the netmask, gateway, and DNS servers on your grid dashboard.

Resources

WISA

Resource	Minimum	Maximum	Default
CPU	0.75	68	2.45
Memory	2.375 GB	166 GB	2.781 GB
Bandwidth	6 Mbps	10.5 Gbps	950 Mbps

WISAx4

Resource	Minimum	Maximum	Default
CPU	1.6	108	3.451
Memory	4.718 GB	390 GB	4.906 GB
Bandwidth	10 Mbps	18.5 Gbps	1.4 Gbps

Application Volumes

The application itself uses several volumes which are already part of the application and are configured into the appliance instances.

Volume	Description
sql_data	Volume for the database data storage. This volume is assigned to the SQL08y appliance. By default, an empty volume named SQL is supplied for the application to use.
fs_data	Volume for storing the WISA application web pages, code, scripts, and anything else that is required by the application. It is also used to store the web server logs. This volume is assigned to the NAS appliance. By default, an empty volume named fs is supplied for the application to use.
mon_data	Volume for storing monitoring data for the application. You should not access or modify this volume. This volume is used internally by the MON appliance.

Operation

This section describes how to use and operate the WISA applications. It is geared towards both administrators and regular CA AppLogic® users. The initial setup and maintenance of the WISA applications requires access to a CA AppLogic® grid.

WISA and WISAx4 are designed to allow the user to quickly port their application over to CA AppLogic®.

Initial Application Setup

Use the following steps to get your own WISA application up and running on a CA AppLogic® grid.

To run a WISA application on a CA AppLogic® grid

Provision the WISA application using the command below. This command provisions a new WISA application named mywisaapp based on WISAx4 reference application. All properties are set to their appropriate values (IPs, DNS servers, and so on). All 4 web servers are enabled to accommodate for possible heavy traffic loads. Also, the sizes of the fs and sql volumes are increased to 250MB and 3GB, correspondingly.
```
app provision WISAx4_r3 mywisaapp in_ip=1.2.3.4 out_ip=1.2.3.5 netmask=255.255.255.0 gateway=1.2.3.1 dns1=1.2.3.50 dns2=1.2.3.51 mon_standby=0 srv2_standby=0 srv3_standby=0 srv4_standby=0 fs.size=250MB sql.size=3GB 
```
CA AppLogic® will provision the mywisaapp application and start it on the grid.
Wait for the application to start; this may take several minutes.
You can now access your application using a browser.
Open up a browser and point it to the configured IP.
Application does not serve any page prior to loading content, so if you have not setup web content yet - application should return an error page (for example, 503). If you do not see web response on this stage, verify your IP addresses are configured correctly and restart the application if needed.

You now have a running WISA application on your grid.
Install your specific application onto the application volumes.
Your application will be ready to go.

Install Your Application

WISA applications are designed to allow you to quickly port your existing applications to a CA AppLogic® grid.

To install your own software on your WISA application, SSH into the web appliance from within the CA AppLogic® shell: ssh mywisaapp:main.srv1

From within the web server, you can now download and install software directly from the internet (as you would typically do if working on your own private server).
If needed, you can also access the SQL database using the db hostname (for example, osql -H db).
You can use \\fs\share to store any files/folders you need for your application (this is the path to your fs application volume). This volume is also used to store all of the IIS files.

After all of your software is installed and configured, there is no need to restart the application (unless the software you installed requires a reboot).

You should now be able to access your application by using the configured hostname or IP address (in_ip).

Serve Dynamic Content from the Remote Filesystem

To serve dynamic content from the remote file system share, each IISx appliance in the application must configured as given in the following procedure.

To configure each IISx appliance in the application

Enable required web service extensions.
- In the IIS manager, select Web Service Extensions and set Allowed for Active Server Pages, ASP.NET v2.0.50727 and Server Side Includes
Set Full Trust on the remote filesystem.
- In a cmd shell execute: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\CasPol.exe -m -ag 1 -url "file:////\\fs\share\*" FullTrust -exclusive on
Restart IIS.
In the IIS manager, select Local Computer=>All Tasks=>Restart IIS

Monitor Your Application

After your application has started, you can monitor the application by using the monitor GUI accessible through the CA AppLogic® GUI.

To monitor your application, do one of the following:

In the applications list GUI page, select your application and click the Monitor button.
Edit your application using the CA AppLogic® infrastructure editor and click the Monitor button at the top of the window.

If you started your application with the monitor in standby state, you can manually start it at runtime: comp start mywisaapp:main.mon. The monitor must be started before you can access it through the CA AppLogic® GUI.

After the monitor has started, you may now access the monitoring GUI to monitor your application. This is used to monitor CPU/memory usage, number of hits your website is getting, traffic load, and so on.

Note: The mon appliance properties are not configured by default; See the MON datasheet on how to configure mon for things like setting the monitor title, enabling background alarms, and so on.