Failover Mechanism

This feature allows an end user to access WAM protected application directly in case,  the Cross Identity application is under maintenance or downtime.

Case 1:

failover=false

If failover is disabled (value is false) then WAM module would work in regular fashion. That is, if Cross Identity is under downtime/maintenance and a user tries logging in to the application URL directly it will redirect end user to an error page where the following message is observed:

“Your connection was Interrupted”.

Although, it will not have any effect on the user, who already has an existing session with the application.

Case 2:

failover=true

If failover is enabled (value is true) then WAM module will execute failover activities. That is, if a user tries logging in to the application URL, the Application login page appears and allows user to log in to the application. A sample screenshot of Appstore Application (Which is protected by WAM), when CI is under downtime/maintenance and with failover=true.

Also, WAM module executes failover in the following scenarios:

1. User accessing the application.
2. User authenticating to the application.
3. User logging out of the application.

The following flow diagram illustrates Web Access Management (WAM) during failover:

Flow diagram 1: Flow of Web Access Management (WAM) during failover scenario.

Step 1: User attempts to access the application directly by clicking the URL (for example, https://myapp.com) in a browser. A User’s request is intercepted by a WAM agent deployed on the application business server.

Step 2: WAM agent detects that the user has not authenticated Cross Identity and hence it makes calls to Cross Identity to check if the CI application is up and running.

Step 2a: If the CI application is up and running, then the request will be redirected to Cross Identity.

Step 3a: User authenticates to Cross Identity and initiates SSO to the application.

Step 2b: If the CI application is down, then the user will continue to use the application as it is.

Step 3b: User authenticates to the Application directly and uses it.