Building a Spira Web Farm with IIS Servers

Scenario Description

This scenario shows how to plan and configure a Spira web farm using the Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) web platform with servers that run the Windows Server® operating system.

The scenario is divided into two phases: a plan and design phase, and an install and configure phase. In the plan and design phase, you learn what the concepts needed to configure a web farm that keeps its server configuration and content synchronized, balances server load, and stores SSL certificate centrally. In the install and configure phase, you are guided through the procedures required to install IIS web server, configure a back-end content server, configure load balancing, and configure a central certificate store for SSL.

In This Scenario

• Plan a Web Farm with IIS Servers

  • Step 1: Plan IIS Web Farm Infrastructure
  • Step 2: Plan IIS Web Farm Configuration
  • Step 3: Plan IIS Web Farm Load Balancing
  • Step 4: Plan SSL Central Certificate Store
  • Step 5: Plan Application Deployment

• Configure a Web Farm with IIS Servers

  • Step 1: Install IIS Web Farm Infrastructure
  • Step 2: Configure IIS Web Farm Servers
  • Step 3: Configure IIS Web Farm Load Balancing
  • Step 4: Configure SSL Central Certificate Store
  • Step 5: Configure Application Deployment

Practical Applications

Whether you are an IT professional, a web developer, or you just want to set up your own web farm, this scenario can help you install and configure a fully functional web farm with IIS web servers.

Software Requirements

To get the most from this scenario, you must have administrator access to at least five computers (or virtual machines) that run the Windows Server operating system.

For the specific Spira installation requirements, please refer to the Spira installation manual.

Specific Instructions

In addition to some of the more general decisions around setting up an IIS web farm, one of the key tasks to enable the different web servers to work harmoniously together is to ensure you have the ViewState machine key setup to be consistent across the different web servers. If not, you'll see this dreaded error message:

The solution is to define an explicit <machineKey> for the web servers and use the same machine key on all of them:

<configuration>
  <system.web>
    <machineKey ... />
  </system.web>
</configuration>

The following Microsoft article describes the process for creating the machine key: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2915218/resolving-view-state-message-authentication-code-mac-errors

See Also

The following table contains links to resources related to this scenario.