Configuring the communication with the Z controller
When you install a z-centric agent, you define whether the communication with the Z controller is established directly or through a gateway. (For detailed information, see twsinst.)
In a simple configuration you configure the z-centric agents to connect directly with the Z controller, while in more complex network topologies you might want to prevent a direct communication (for example, when the agents are behind a firewall and need to communicate through the internet or if they need to communicate with a Network Address Translation (NAT) process). In this latest case, you can configure your z-centric agents to communicate with the Z controller through a local or remote gateway.
For each type of communication a different behavior applies, as described hereafter.
Communicating with the Z controller directly
- By configuring a direct communication between the z-centric agent and controller, you also define the HTTP or HTTPS destination in the ROUTOPTS statement. This means that the agent communicates directly with the controller in a bidirectional communication model, contacting each other through two different ports.
- The z-centric agent must be defined to the Z controller, while the Z controller is not defined to the agent. As a consequence, the z-centric agent can communicate with more than one controller.
- Each request started from the Z controller is immediately submitted on the z-centric agent workstation, with no delay.
Communicating with the Z controller through a gateway
- By configuring the communication between the z-centric agent and controller through a gateway you also define the GATEWAY destination in the ROUTOPTS statement. This implies that the communication with the Z controller is always started by the gateway in an unidirectional communication model.
- Each gateway can communicate with one controller and multiple z-centric agents, as follows:
- The gateway must be defined both to the Z controller and one or more z-centric agents.
- The z-centric agent must be defined only to the Z controller.
- The Z controller must be defined only to the gateway.
- To communicate, the gateway asks for requests from the Z controller according to a polling rate, then dispatches the actions to the affected z-centric agent workstation.
- Being the gateway a configuration of the z-centric agent, to shut down the gateway you need to shut down the agent.