ITIM 5.0 has two interfaces: the Self-Service GUI and the Console GUI, both web based. Ideally all end-user and non-administrator traffic would be routed to the Self-Service GUI which is very lightweight on both the number and size of the HTTP requests. It is optimized for both WAN and LAN access.

The Console GUI is more heavy-weight both in the number of HTTP requests and the size of the responses compared to the Self-Service GUI and the ITIM 4.6 interface. This is due to its more powerful multitasking capabilities. The Console GUI is best used over a LAN or fast WAN access.

One way to improve Console GUI performance, both over WANs and LANs, is to enable HTTP compression on the web server fronting the WebSphere Application Servers. This is done by enabling and configuring the mod_deflate plugin in the HTTP_HOME/conf/httpd.conf file. See the ITIM 5.0 Performance Tuning Guide section 2.5.2 for more information. The deflate plugin can significantly improve the responsiveness of the Console over slower connections like WANs and VPNs.

Use of the HTTP server and HTTP compression is recommended in front of single-server ITIM nodes because of the improved UI responsiveness for the Console. The HTTP server can reside on the same machine as the ITIM server itself in such a configuration.