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Web platform now multi-tiered

Jul 22, 2007

By John Weible

Today we changed our web servers to insert the new web server layer we announced previously.  From now on, all web requests for www.library.uiuc.edu go through our new system.

How it works

Another server change and project related to all of the above is the implementation of a "reverse proxy web server" that will operate in front of the other web and CMS servers.  It will have no content of its own, but silently intercepts and processes all web requests coming to our sites.  It essentially operates like this:

• Receive each web browser's request from our site,
• Look at the hostname and path (e.g. "www.library.uiuc.edu" and "/orr/") requested,
• Determine which "real" back-end web server(s) have that content,
• Determine whether the pathname on the back end is different than what the public sees,
• Rewrite the original request and fetch that page from the back-end web server,
• Forward the content back to the user's browser.

Why we did this

User-side Integration of Content and Services

In our case, the insertion of this additional layer also can help reduce the impact of change on users while our content transitions to a CMS environment.  It will also allow us to bring some loose ends under the www.library.uiuc.edu namespace. 

Examples of this name space improvement:

• The Staff Events calendar at http://130.126.32.16/evanced/lib0/ is now viewable at the friendlier address http://www.library.uiuc.edu/calendar/staff/
• The new "Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection" running on the Olive system is now online at http://www.library.uiuc.edu/idnc/ even though it's also coming from a different server.
• A unit page in the CMS natively has an address like https://cms.library.uiuc.edu/cms/unit/page.html.  We can hide that from the end users, who will see it as http://www.library.uiuc.edu/unit/page.html. 

Server Flexibility

The complexity of the Library's web sites (both technically and organizationally) has brought us to the point where a multi-tier architecture now makes sense.  Most very large web sites operate this way, since it allows a great deal of flexibility regarding the distribution of content and processing power on the back end servers.

Server Security

With this new arrangement, we have some additional ways we can secure our real content and application web servers.

For comments on this page contact: IT ISD

Last modified by: Saif Abayazid on 2/12/08