Implementation Guide › Architectural Considerations › Architectural Use Cases › Redundancy and High Availability › Agent to Policy Server Communication

Agent to Policy Server Communication

When you configure a SiteMinder Web Agent, a Host configuration file (named SmHost.conf by default), is created on the web server. The Web Agent uses the connection information in this Host configuration file to create an initial connection with a Policy Server.

Note: For more information about installing a Web Agent, see the Web Agent Installation Guide.

After the initial connection is established, the Web Agent obtains subsequent Policy Server connection information from the Host Configuration Object (HCO) on the Policy Server. You can configure the HCO to include multiple Policy Servers and specify how the Web Agent is to distribute requests among multiple Policy Servers.

A Web Agent can distribute requests among multiple Policy Servers in the following ways:

• Failover
• Round–robin load balancing
• Round–robin load balancing over one or more clusters of Policy Servers