Big IP and IIS Setup for Merge Replication Web Sync

We are planning on using Big IP for load balancing Web Synchronization requests for merge replication. We have SQL Server databases on remote sites that sync up with a central database periodically. The sync processes uses IIS ISAPI filter that forwards requests to the central database ( a.k.a Web Synchronization).

 

 

Web Synchronization over HTTPS works as expected when the subscribers connect to the publisher/distributor using a URL that points to a IIS installation configured for Web Sync. However, this solution is not scalable and we want to use Big IP for load balancing.

 

 

IIS, when configured for Web Sync, rejects plain HTTP traffic, so we cannot use Big IP as the SSL End point. In this scenario, if BIG IP passes on the SSL traffic to IIS without modification, we expect it to work. Is this possible? can someone point me to some document that will help us configure Big IP for SSL passthrough to IIS? Will this allow sticky sessions?

 

 

The Big IP installation is used by multiple product groups - so any configuration we do for SSL Passthrough cannot be made for the entire installation, it should be specific to Web Sync requests ( for specific target IIS URLs)

 

 

We have SQL Server 2005 service pack 3 as publisher/distributor and SQL Express service pack 2 as subscriber. We use the executable "replmerg.exe" that comes with SQL Express to do the synchronization. The subscription type is PULL.

 

 

If you have tried this configuration or know how to make it work, I would appreciate your feedback. If you had faced issues or know that this configuration would not work, plese respond to this question.