While WebSphere® Application Server provides session management function, the performance degrades as the number of requests increases. WebSphere eXtreme Scale comes bundled with a session management implementation that provides session replication, high availability, better scalability, and more robust configuration options.
Embedded scenario
In the embedded scenario, the data grid servers are collocated in the same processes where the servlets run. The session manager can communicate directly with the local ObjectGrid instance, avoiding costly network delays.
If you are using WebSphere Application Server, place the supplied wxs_home/session/samples/objectGrid.xml and wxs_home/session/samples/objectGridDeployment.xml files into the META-INF directories of your web archive (WAR) files. eXtreme Scale automatically detects these files when the application starts and automatically starts the eXtreme Scale containers in the same process as the session manager.
You can modify the objectGridDeployment.xml file. Modifying this file depends on whether you want to use synchronous or asynchronous replication and how many replicas you want configured.
Remote servers scenario
In the remote servers scenario, the container servers that are run are in different processes than the servlets. The session manager communicates with a remote container server. To use a remote, network-attached container server, the session manager must be configured with the host names and port numbers of the catalog service domain. The session manager then uses an eXtreme Scale client connection to communicate with the catalog server and the container servers.
If the container servers are starting in independent, stand-alone processes, start the data grid containers with the objectGridStandAlone.xml and objectGridDeploymentStandAlone.xml files that are supplied in the session manager samples directory.