On a regular basis I receive e-mails on a variety of reverse proxy/application gateway questions in combination with SAP NetWeaver and applications running on SAP NetWeaver. There is quite a number of very good resources available already, however they are not all in the same location, so I thought I'd share the resources I have used over the past few years. The information in this blog is by no means a complete list, but it is a good start...
SAP software adheres to industry standards so it can be vendor neutral and can work with a multitude of reverse proxies, so the list below also includes links to some vendor documentation on reverse proxy offerings.
There are many aspects to a web infrastructure, so at the end of the blog I added links to interesting blogs on Wide Area Network acceleration.
The most comprehensive resource on SAP web infrastructure topics is an SAP Press book called "Building Web Infrastructures with SAP NetWeaver Application Server" (ISBN-978-1-592229-161-8) written by SAP RIG colleagues Oliver Nocon and Volker Zirkel. This book discusses reverse proxy as a web infrastructure component, but also discusses other web infrastructure topics like load balancing, high availability, security, performance, and sizing and load tests.
SAP Note 833960 is a very important note to read when you start planning a reverse proxy and will have multiple backend systems. The note specifies a limitation that unification of multiple backend systems under one external hostname by the application gateway is not supported. One solution is to set up multiple external URL's mapped to multiple backend systems using virtual hostnames in the reverse proxy. For example you could have external names crm.company.com, portal.company.com, and bw.company.com mapped to your respective backend systems. SAP RIG colleague Nghia Nguyen's Know How Network Call gives examples on this using Apache.
SAP Press book:
http://www.sap-press.com/product.cfm?account=&product=H2911
SDN Resources:
Know How Network Call by SAP RIG colleague Nghia Nguyen: "Apache Reverse Proxy - multi-backend scenarios"
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/webinar?rid=/library/uuid/090cf6fc-0b01-0010-19a4-bf965c75e8f6
Alon Weinstein's reverse-proxy blog series on SDN:
The Reverse Proxy Series -- Part 1: Introduction
The Reverse Proxy Series -- Part 2: IIS as a reverse-proxy
The Reverse Proxy Series -- Part 3: Apache as a reverse-proxy
SAP NetWeaver Portal, FPN, and Reverse Proxy how-to/best practice guides:
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/howtoguides?rid=/library/uuid/703cfbbd-e85e-2a10-00a3-ecd502c08e82
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/howtoguides?rid=/library/uuid/302df1e0-1c65-2b10-24bf-9b20478e4ef0
Important SAP Notes:
https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/833960
https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/929082
Service Marketplace aliases:
https://service.sap.com/security: Security in Detail - Infrastructure Security (includes the guide "TCP/IP Port used by SAP Applications"
https://service.sap.com/securityguide: SAP NetWeaver Network Security
SAP Teched:
SAP Teched has had a session on reverse proxy concepts for the past few years. If anyone from your organization went to SAP Teched you can try to download these session materials under their registration. This list gives the year and the session code:
2006 - SPC250, AGS207
2007 - LCM255
2008 - LCM265
URL Prefixes for CRM5.2:
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_crm52/helpdata/EN/a8/a8463c53a0ff02e10000000a114084/frameset.htm
help.sap.com:
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_crm52/helpdata/EN/59/31ae42e0fac911e10000000a1550b0/content.htm
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_crm52/helpdata/EN/18/5cea2296190e4cb7faf9468ad793ea/frameset.htm
W3C/IETF resources:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt (section 8.1.3 - Proxy Servers)
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2818.txt
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2246.txt
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4346.txt
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5246.txt
Web Dispatcher:
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/EN/b4/9aa8862e714e6db8e74e48e5d3283b/frameset.htm
Apache:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/rewrite/
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/vhosts/
WebSeal Admin Manual:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/tividd/td/ITAME/SC32-1359-00/en_US/HTML/am51_webseal_guide02.htm#wq1
WebSeal Virtual Host Junction concepts:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v2r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.itame.doc_6.0/am60_w...
On the topic of WAN acceleration:
On Accelerated Application Delivery for SAP NetWeaver (AccAD)
Introducing Accelerated Application Delivery 2.1 for SAP NetWeaver
Speed up access to applications with Accelerated Application Delivery for SAP NetWeaver
Joerg Nalik's blog on "Network Infrastructure for SAP Application-based Landscapes", this blog includes links to network partner white papers focused on WAN acceleration:
Network Infrastructure for SAP Application-based Landscapes
