Certification Study Guide: IBM Tivoli Access Manager for e-business 6.0

40 Certification Study Guide: IBM Tivoli Access Manager for e-business 6.0

2.2.5 Plug-In for Edge Server

The Access Manager Plug-In for Edge Server is a plug-in for the Edge Server

Caching Proxy component of the IBM WebSphere Edge Server. It adds Access

Manager authentication and authorization capabilities to the proxy, and in certain

scenarios it provides an alternative to WebSEAL for managing access to Web

content and applications.

While the Plug-In for Edge Server shares many of the same capabilities as

WebSEAL, its configuration is different. However, architecturally, it fits into most

Access Manager scenarios in the same manner as WebSEAL.

Among other differences is one key differentiator between the plug-in and

WebSEAL: the plug-in can be used in both forward and reverse proxy

configurations, while WebSEAL only supports a reverse proxy.

The plug-in also integrates with the IBM WebSphere Everyplace® Suite and

supports forms-based login and Access Manager WebSEAL fail-over cookies.

Figure 2-6 provides a simplified view of the Plug-In for Edge Server architecture

used as a reverse proxy (a forward proxy scenario is virtually identical, except

that the proxy operations are to the outside rather than back-end servers).

Figure 2-6 Plug-in for Edge Server architecture

Browser

Edge Server

Caching Proxy

Authentication

Services

Backend

servers

HTTP/HTTPS

Requests

HTTP/HTTPS

Responses

Authorization

Engine

Access

Manager User

Registry

Authorization

Database

Web

Server

Web

Server

Web

Server

Edge

Server

Plug-in