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How To Check Session Persistence On BigIP F5, Cisco Ace, Citrix Netscaler or Radware AppDirector Load
Balancer Appliances (Doc ID 601694.1)
In this Document
Goal
Solution
Section 1: F5 BigIp
Section 2: Cisco Application Control Engine Module (ACE)
Section 3: Radware AppDirector
Section 4: Citrix Netscaler
References

APPLIES TO:
Oracle Applications Technology Stack - Version 11.5.10.0 to 12.1.3 [Release 11.5 to 12.1]
Oracle Applications Framework - Version 12.1.3 to 12.1.3 [Release 12.1]
Information in this document applies to any platform.

GOAL
***Checked for relevance 20-MAY-2013***
This document aims to help the customer verify their persistence settings on F5 BigIP and Cisco ACE load balancer appliances. It provides
instructions on checking specific persistence settings on the hardware device to ensure correct eBusiness suite functioning.
Maintaining session persistence is essential to ensuring a users session remains on the same middle tier throughout the duration of their
session. When the session is not maintained on the one middle tier users may experience the 'Transaction context is lost' message See Note
456906.1.
Session Persistence is the act of keeping a specific user's traffic going to the same server that was initially hit when the site was contacted
for the first HTTP transaction. This is especially important for E-Business Suite as various modules bundled with the suite need to maintain
session state. Session persistence is sometimes referred to as "server stickiness."
Section 1: F5 BigIp
Section 2: Cisco Application Control Engine Module (ACE)

SOLUTION

Section 1: F5 BigIp
Step 1: Check the load balancing method being used. This controls how requests are balanced by BigIp between your web
nodes
From the BigIp home screen select Local Traffic - Pools
Choose the Oracle pool you created for the eBusiness Suite configuration. Now select the members tab. You will see something similar to
the following.

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It is important here to make sure the 'Load Balancing Method' is set to Predictive (member)

Step 2: Check which persistence profile is being used by your Virtual Server handling the eBusiness Suite requests
From the BigIp home screen select Local Traffic - Virtual Servers. Choose the Oracle virtual server being used by selecting 'edit'. Make a note
of the 'default persistence profile' used by the virtual server. e.g see below

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Step 3: Confirm persistence settings are correct

From the BigIp home screen select Local Traffic - Virtual Servers - Profiles. Now select the Persistence tab. You will then see a screen similar
to below.

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Select the default persistence profile that you made note of in step 2. In this case we choose 'cookie'
You will now see a screen 'similar' to the following:

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The cookie method setting must be 'HTTP Cookie Insert'.

Depending on your version of the BigIp appliance you will have either an option to select an expiration of session cookie (earlier BigIp
models) or you have the option to select an expire duration (newer models)
On earlier models please tick the session cookie expiration box as per the above picture. If you have a newer appliance which offers a time
based expiration choose 12 hours as per the picture below

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If you are implementing BigIp for the 1st time please see the referenced deployment guides for step by step instructions for the setup of
BigIp. Use the correct deployment guide along with the referenced 11i or R12 official Oracle notes for guidance. For more information see
Note 727171.1

Section 2: Cisco Application Control Engine Module (ACE)

Session persistence sometimes referred as stickiness is an ACE feature that allows the same client to maintain multiple simultaneous or
subsequent TCP or IP connections with the same server for the duration of a session. A session is defined as a series of transactions
between a client and a server over some finite period of time (from several minutes to several hours). This is especially important for EBS to
maintain session state.
Depending on the configured SLB policy, the ACE "sticks" a client to an appropriate server after the ACE has determined which
load-balancing method to use. If the ACE determines that a client is already stuck to a particular server, then the ACE sends that client
request to that server, regardless of the load-balancing criteria specified by the matched policy. If the ACE determines that the client is not
stuck to a particular server, it applies the normal load balancing rules to the content request.
Step 1: Validate the load balancing method being used.
This controls how the client requests are balanced by ACE between Application nodes
From Cisco ANM (Application Networking Manager) screen,
select Config-> Devices ->Load Balancing ->Server Farms
Select Server Farm defined for Oracle Application hosts. In this example: Select ORACLE_APPHOSTS
Select Predictor Tab and ensure proper SLB Type is selected. In this example SLB is set to Round Robin, however you may also choose
Predictive Node Address as the method. Neither will affect persistence. The preferred setting as per Note 380489.1 is Predictive Node
Address

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Step 2: Confirm persistence/Stickiness settings are correct

From Cisco ANM (Application Networking Manager) screen, select Config-> Devices ->Load Balancing ->Stickiness
Select cookie method type Http_cookie and check Enable Insert and Browser Expire. Custom name is provided for Cookie name. In
this example it was defined ACE_COOKIE.
Select Sticky Server Farm that you want stickiness to be enabled. In this example : ORACLE_APPSHOSTS has been chosen.
Make sure the expiration time is set to 12 hours.

Section 3: Radware AppDirector

See Radware's AppDirector and Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 Integration Guide
Specifically, see section "Configure L7 Persistency for the web farm"

Section 4: Citrix Netscaler

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REFERENCES
NOTE:380489.1
NOTE:217368.1
NOTE:456906.1
NOTE:727171.1

Using Load-Balancers with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12

Advanced Configurations and Topologies for Enterprise Deployments of E-Business Suite 11i
11i/R12 How to Debug "Transaction Context Is Lost" or "You are trying to access a page that is no longer active"
Implementing Load Balancing On Oracle E-Business Suite - Documentation For Specific Load Balancer Hardware

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