JSF session scoped managed beans in cluster environment

Question

I am looking to move a few web applications from a single server environment to a WebSphere clustered environment. I am looking to see if there are code changes necessary. The web applications use JSF framework and use managed beans annotated with @SessionScope

I have little knowledge of JSF, but based on what I read, the managed beans need to implement the Serializable interface if they are to be deployed in a clustered environment and that the WebSphere cluster would take care of synchronizing the managed beans, if they can be serialized/de-serialized. Is the above true?

Answer 1

Yes, they are serialized into the HTTPSession which itself can be replicated across a cluster. They can then be recovered in the event of a failover.

In traditional WebSphere, this is via "memory to memory session replication" (a peer-to-peer architecture) or by using a shared database. In the Liberty Profile, you can use DB, WebSphere Extreme Scale (WXS) or other memory grids (like hazelcast) for session replication.

The settings for session replication will determine how up-to-date your sessions coped beans are in the case of a failover.