Choosing the Types of Requests You Will Service

Understanding the Oracle Reports Services Architecture 2-15 The Web case is clearly the most cost effective because it reduces client maintenance costs. But there might be cases where launching non-Web requests is a necessity. Oracle Reports Services supports the implementation of both Web and non-Web requests in a single deployment environment.

2.4.2 Choosing Oracle Reports Servlet, JSP, or Web Services

To use Oracle Reports Services in a Web environment, you must use Oracle Reports Servlet rwservlet, Reports Web Services, or Reports JSP. Between Oracle Reports Servlet rwservlet and Reports JSP there are additional considerations. A JSP-only implementation means that you can publish a layout that is optimized for Web delivery that is, the Oracle Reports Web Layout. Oracle Reports Servlet rwservlet enables you to include paper layouts in your report publishing solution and fully leverage the distribution features of Oracle Reports Services. Using Oracle Reports Servlet rwservlet does not imply that you cannot also use JSP files, because JSP files can contain both Web and paper layouts. When you run a report stored in a JSP, you specify the servlet in the URL and call the JSP with the command line option report=myreport.jsp. In this case, report output is created based on the paper layout. For more information on running reports, see Chapter 18, Running Report Requests .

2.4.3 Choosing Single or Multiple-Machine Configurations

You can place Oracle Reports Services on the same machine as your Web server or on a different machine. Both scenarios have pros and cons. For example, while its true that having Oracle Reports Services and the Web server on the same machine requires more of the machines memory and disk space, its also true that such an implementation reduces network traffic. This is because requests traveling between the Web server and the application server do not have to travel across a network, only incoming requests must do so. If you are using the in-process Reports Server available only with Oracle Reports Servlet rwservlet implementations you can further amplify the performance advantages of a single machine. The in-process Reports Server speeds up processing time by allowing for faster and more efficient communication between Oracle Reports Services components. We recommend that you use the in-process Reports Server unless you will not use Oracle Reports Servlet rwservlet to deploy reports. On the other hand, if you have a single machine configuration and that machine fails, everything fails. While there is a greater amount of network traffic when the Web server and the application server are on different machines, you also benefit from the increase in system resources, in the form of additional CPUs, more disk space, and more available memory. Even in a multiple machine configuration, the in-process Reports Server will aid performance by speeding communication between Oracle Reports Services components. Another possibility is placing your Web server and your application server each on multiple machines. This will require additional configuration, but it enables you to implement load balancing on the Web server. By using the environment switching feature it is possible to spawn Reports Engines with different environment settings, including language, in the same Reports Server. Refer to Section 8.2.2, Dynamic Environment Switching for more information. 2-16 Publishing Reports to the Web with Oracle Reports Services

2.5 Setting Up a High Availability Environment

11g Release 1 11.1.1 provides numerous high availability HA enhancements, as listed in Table 2–1 in Section 2.1, What’s New In This Release? . This section discusses the following topics pertinent to establishing a high availability environment: ■ Maintaining High Availability ■ Configuring the rwservlet.properties file ■ Configuring Reports Server for High Availability

2.5.1 Maintaining High Availability

Oracle Fusion Middleware consists of many components that can be deployed in distributed topologies. The underlying paradigm used to enable high availability for Oracle Fusion Middleware is clustering, which unites various Oracle Fusion Middleware components in certain permutations to offer scalable and unified functionality, and redundancy should any of the individual components fail.

2.5.2 Configuring the rwservlet.properties file

Perform the following steps to configure the rwservlet.properties file: 1. Make sure that the in-process server has a unique name. You can check the server sub-element of the rwservlet.properties to verify the unique server name. 2. Configure cluster in the rwservlet.properties file. cluster clustername=ha_cluster clusternodes=ha_server2 cluster name should be same in all rwservlet.properties files. Cluster nodes should include in-process server names which are part of the cluster except the current one. More than one server should be separated by a colon. 3. Save the servlet configuration file. Alternatively, you can configure a cluster through Oracle Enterprise Manager: 1. Navigate to the Reports Application Home Page in Enterprise Manager.

2. From the Reports menu, select System MBean Browser.

The System MBean Browser page is displayed. 3. From the left content pane, expand Application Defined MBeans oracle.reportsApp.config Server: WLS_REPORTS Application: reports ReportsApp .

4. Select rwservlet from the list.

The Application Defined MBeans: Report sApp:rwservlet page is displayed. 5. Click the Operations tab. 6. Select addCluster. Note: Refer to the Oracle Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Java EE and Oracle Fusion Middleware High Availability Guide for more information on the various solutions and techniques to achieve high availability in Oracle Fusion Middleware.