Typical topologies of a MobileFirst instance in an extranet infrastructure
A MobileFirst instance uses a particular topology that is typical for organizations with an established extranet infrastructure.
The following figure depicts this topology.
Figure 1. Typical topology of a MobileFirst instance
Such a topology is based on the
following principles:
- MobileFirst Server is installed in the organization local area network (LAN), connecting to various enterprise back-end systems.
- MobileFirst Server can be clustered for high availability and scalability.
- MobileFirst Server uses a database for storing push notification information, statistics for reporting and analytics, and the metadata that the server needs at run time. All instances of MobileFirst Server share a single instance of the database.
- MobileFirst Server is installed behind a web Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication infrastructure, which acts as a reverse proxy and provides the Security Socket Layer (SSL).
MobileFirst Server can be installed in different network configurations, which might include several DMZ layers (firewall configurations for securing local area networks), reverse proxies, Network Address Translation (NAT) devices, firewalls, high availability components such as load balancers, IP sprayers, clustering, and alike. Some of these components are explained. However, this document assumes a simpler configuration in which MobileFirst Server is installed in the DMZ.