mod_jk versus mod_proxy

Before we proceed, please have a look at mod_cluster.

Now to mod_jk versus mod_proxy comparison:

A good blog post by Mladen Turk "Comparing mod_proxy and mod_jk".

Interesting reply from Bill Barker, one of the developers on mod_jk.
mod_jk versus mod_proxy under load ?

The moral of the links above is that due to persistent connections, mod_jk has better performance than mod_proxy. But the flip side is that mod_jk has extra configuration to set up, in comparison to mod_proxy.

From official documentation from Tomcat at: Tomcat Connectors, you can get the following snippet:

- "mod_jk" is great and should be used for production. It is getting fixes as needed (which is now rare).
- "mod_proxy". A cheap way to proxy without the hassles of configuring JK. This solution lacks sticky session load balancing. If you don't need some of the features of jk, jk2 - this is a very simple alternative.
- "mod_proxy_ajp". With apache 2.2, mod_proxy was rewritten to support load balancing as well as a new transport called mod_proxy_ajp. This module is distributed with the Apache http server, not the Tomcat server.

Interesting note from a sys admin (from his Feb 15, 2006 post):

Goodbye mod_jk hello mod_proxy

Another good article on the usage of Apache as a Forward or a reverse proxy using mod_proxy:
Forward and Reverse Proxies

Here is a blog on load balancing with mod_proxy:
LoadBalancingWithModProxy


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