Introduction:
Polarion does not provide native clustering capabilities for load balancing and failover strategies out-of-the-box. Polarion is primarily designed as a web-based application that runs on a single server. However, you can implement load balancing and failover strategies for Polarion by setting up a cluster using third-party technologies or infrastructure components. Here are some options you can consider:
Load Balancers: You can use a load balancer, such as NGINX, Apache HTTP Server with mod_proxy_balancer, or a dedicated hardware load balancer, to distribute incoming traffic across multiple Polarion server instances. The load balancer acts as a front-end, routing requests to different servers based on predefined algorithms (e.g., round-robin, least connections) to achieve load balancing.
Use Case: Load balancing enables horizontal scalability by adding more server instances to handle increasing user load. As the number of users accessing Polarion grows, load balancers ensure that requests are evenly distributed across the available servers, preventing any single server from becoming overwhelmed. This scalability allows the system to handle a larger number of concurrent users and maintain optimal performance.
Reverse Proxy: Setting up a reverse proxy server, like NGINX or Apache HTTP Server with mod_proxy, can help distribute incoming requests across multiple Polarion server instances. The reverse proxy server acts as an intermediary between clients and Polarion servers, forwarding requests to different instances based on various load balancing algorithms.
Use Case: A reverse proxy acts as an intermediary between client devices and the Polarion server, adding an additional layer of security. A reverse proxy can handle SSL/TLS encryption and decryption, offloading the computational overhead from the Polarion server. It can terminate SSL/TLS connections with clients and establish a secure connection with the server, improving performance and reducing the server’s workload.
Virtualization and Containerization: You can leverage virtualization technologies like VMware or containerization platforms such as Docker and Kubernetes to deploy multiple instances of Polarion across different virtual machines or containers. These technologies provide flexibility in managing and scaling Polarion instances based on load and resource requirements.
Use Case: Virtualization and containerization allow you to create isolated environments for development and testing purposes. You can spin up virtual machines or containers specifically configured for Polarion, enabling developers and testers to work independently without interfering with the production environment. This isolation ensures that changes made during development or testing do not impact the stability of the live Polarion instance.
Database Replication: To ensure high availability and failover capability, you can implement database replication strategies. This involves setting up database replication mechanisms like master-slave replication or database clustering for the underlying database system used by Polarion. This way, if one database server fails, another replica can take over seamlessly.
Use Case: Database replication ensures high availability for the Polarion application. By setting up master-slave replication or database clustering, you create redundant copies of the database. If the primary database server fails or becomes unavailable, the replication mechanism automatically promotes one of the replicas as the new primary, allowing Polarion to continue functioning without interruption. This minimizes downtime and ensures continuous access to the application.
Below image describes the Load Balancing Use case.
