In addition to the protocols previously discussed, this chapter describes the basic steps for configuring SteelHead protocol optimization for the following protocols:

You can display and modify Oracle Forms optimization settings in the Configure > Optimization > Oracle Forms page.

Oracle Forms is a platform for developing user interface applications to interact with an Oracle database. It uses a Java applet to interact with the database in either native, HTTP, or HTTPS mode. The SteelHead decrypts, optimizes, and then reencrypts the Oracle Forms traffic.

You can configure Oracle Forms optimization in these modes:

Use Oracle Forms optimization to improve Oracle Forms traffic performance. RiOS 5.5.x and later support 6i, which comes with Oracle Applications 11i. RiOS 6.0 and later support 10gR2, which comes with Oracle E-Business Suite R12.

This feature does not need a separate license and is enabled by default. However, you must also set an in-path rule to enable this feature.

Before enabling Oracle Forms optimization, you must know the mode in which Oracle Forms is running at your organization.

For more information about configuring Oracle Forms optimization, see the SteelHead Management Console User’s Guide.

NFS optimization provides latency optimization improvements for NFS operations by prefetching data, storing it on the client SteelHead for a short amount of time, and using it to respond to client requests. You enable NFS optimization in high-latency environments.

You can configure NFS settings globally for all servers and volumes or you can configure NFS settings that are specific to particular servers or volumes. When you configure NFS settings for a server, the settings are applied to all volumes on that server unless you override settings for specific volumes.

For each SteelHead, you specify a policy for prefetching data from NFS servers and volumes. You can set the following policies for NFS servers and volumes:

After you add a server, the Management Console includes options to configure volume policies.

For detailed information, see the SteelHead Management Console User’s Guide.

This section describes the basic steps for using the Management Console to implement NFS. For detailed information, see the SteelHead Management Console User’s Guide.

Perform the following basic steps to configure NFS optimization.

If you have configured IP aliasing (multiple IP addresses) for an NFS server, you must specify all of the server IP addresses in the SteelHead NFS protocol settings for NFS optimization to work properly.

You can enable and modify Lotus Notes optimization settings in the Configure > Optimization > Lotus Notes page.

Lotus Notes is a client-server collaborative application that provides email, instant messaging, calendar, resource, and file sharing. RiOS provides latency and bandwidth optimization for Lotus Notes 6.0 and later traffic across the WAN, accelerating email attachment transfers and server-to-server or client-to-server replications.

RiOS saves bandwidth by automatically disabling socket compression, which makes SDR more effective. RiOS also saves bandwidth by decompressing Huffman-compressed attachments and LZ-compressed attachments when they are sent or received and recompressing them on the other side. This process allows SDR to recognize attachments that have previously been sent in other ways (such as over CIFS, HTTP, or other protocols), and also allows SDR to optimize the sending and receiving of attachments that are slightly changed from previous sends and receives.

To use this feature, both the client-side and server-side SteelHeads must be running RiOS 5.5.x or later. To enable optimization of encrypted Lotus Notes connections, both the client-side and server-side SteelHeads must be running RiOS 7.0.

Enabling Lotus Notes provides latency optimization regardless of the compression type (Huffman, LZ, or none).

Before enabling Lotus Notes optimization, be aware that it automatically disables socket-level compression for connections going through SteelHeads that have this feature enabled.

For information about configuring Lotus Notes optimization, see the SteelHead Management Console User’s Guide.

You can optimize encrypted Lotus Notes traffic in RiOS 7.0 or later. When you enable the encrypted Lotus Notes feature, traffic between SteelHeads is decrypted and the current Lotus Notes protocol optimization (RiOS 5.5) is applied.

The Lotus Notes and the Domino server relies on a the Notes ID file for proper authentication. This file contains information for authentication and encryption between the client and the server in the Lotus Notes and Domino system. The Notes ID file is usually stored on the client. You must have a password to decrypt the ID file and use its contents, but you do not need a password to authenticate with the server (for example, MS-Exchange or other systems).

This section requires that you be familiar with Lotus Notes and Domino servers.

To optimize an encrypted connection between a Notes client and a Domino server, you must import the Domino servers ID file into the server-side SteelHead, because the SteelHeads in the path of the connection need to be able to decrypt and reencrypt the sent data. Next, configure the Domino server with a port on which it accepts unencrypted connections. This port can be either the standard port or an auxiliary port. Now, when a Notes client connects to the Domino server, the server-side SteelHead forwards the connection to the auxiliary port of the server.

After the connection is authenticated, the server-side SteelHead resets the connection of the Notes client but maintains the unencrypted connection with the Domino server on the auxiliary port. The Notes client now tries to establish a new encrypted connection, which the server-side SteelHead intercepts and handles as if it were the Domino server.

The server-side SteelHead (acting as the Domino server) generates the information necessary to encrypt the connection to the Notes client. The result is a connection that is encrypted between the Notes client and server-side SteelHead but unencrypted between the server-side SteelHead and the Domino server.

This section describes how to configure optimized encrypted Lotus Notes.

When the Notes client has connected to the Domino server, you see an optimized encrypted Notes connection in the current connections table. An example client-side SteelHead is shown in Figure: Client-Side SteelHead Current Connections Page with Optimized Encrypted Lotus Notes.

Riverbed recommends that you also enable secure peering on the SteelHeads. The optimized encrypted Notes connection between the client-side and the server-side SteelHeads is unencrypted. To secure this connection, you can enable secure peering on the SteelHeads. For more details, see Deploying Secure Peering for All Optimized Traffic.

If the SteelHead encounters an error with the Domino server, the IP address of the Domino server might be added to a blacklist at the server-side SteelHead to avoid disruption to the traffic. This includes configuration errors. New connections to or from the IP address are not optimized.

You can view blacklist entries with the show protocol notes encrypt blacklist command. You can clear the entire blacklist or a single entry with the protocol notes encrypt blacklist remove-ip <ip-address> command.

The best practice is to check the system logs of the SteelHead to see if something about your Lotus Notes optimization is not working properly: for example, there are messages if the wrong server ID file is imported or the unencrypted port is not configured on the Domino server.

Important notes: