WebUI and Distributed Server Architecture (DSA)

Understand how to work with WebUI in Distributed Server Architecture (DSA).

WebUI and DSA

If you are using DSA to provide redundancy and you have your WebUI installed on the primary server, when it fails, you will have to use the secondary server to install a new instance of the WebUI that connects to the secondary server. If the WebUI is installed on a separate server, there is no need to uninstall and reinstall it.

In both cases, when you deploy the WebUI against a non-primary server, configure the client setting on the WebUI host machine to connect to the secondary server using the WebUI server setting _WebUIAppEnv_PLATFORM_HOST. This prevents the WebUI instance from defaulting to using the host name specified in the masthead.

Note: Multiple instances of the WebUI are not currently supported. If you are reinstalling the WebUI service on a machine, uninstall the WebUI service first.

DSA and SAML

BigFix supports SAML authentication in a DSA environment. In the event of a primary server failure, you will need to separately configure each BigFix instance you want to enable in SAML. For example, in Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), define SAML Assertion Consumer Endpoints for:
  1. The primary WebUI server, the primary BES root server, and the primary Web Reports server (if you are using Web Reports).
  2. The secondary WebUI server, the secondary BES root server, and the secondary Web Reports server (if you are using Web Reports).