Important network topology considerations

The Infor ION Grid is a highly distributed application server where application nodes can run on many different hosts. Every node is able and will initiate communication to all Host Routers within the same grid to register itself on startup, communicate during runtime, and de-register itself on shutdown.

Due to this design, low network latency and high bandwidth are essential for proper grid operation, and so the following guidelines must be adhered to in order to avoid problems:

  • All hosts should be connected using a fast network (Gigabit or faster is recommended).

    The network has to be reliable. Dropped network connections result in unpredictable behavior of applications installed in the grid.

  • All hosts included within a grid must be located on the same network segment and ideally connected to the same switch. The grid was not designed to work across network segments. Any topology which bridges network segments will not be supported and will likely result in poor application performance.

    For example, the following configurations are unlikely to meet the requirements stated above and are therefore not supported:

    • Mixing hosts which are located in different data-centers or on different sites
    • Mixing hosts in the DMZ and on the intranet
  • All hosts should be able to communicate freely with each other without hindrance from firewall configurations.
  • If a firewall is in place, rules must be defined to ensure that TCP/IP traffic can flow freely between all hosts in the Grid for all fixed ports. It is recommended that a firewall be used to ring-fence the hosts rather than between hosts to minimize the chance of misconfiguration and resulting issues.
  • Anti-virus software can interfere with communication between processes. If such software is installed and running on the servers then care must be taken to ensure that exceptions are created for the Java executable used to run the Grid.
  • In the case of the Windows platform , care must be taken to ensure the firewall service (Windows service named Windows Firewall) is started. This service should not be disabled or stopped as this causes inconsistent behavior where traffic is randomly filtered.
  • All hosts must be configured with a static IP address.