Hi Ahmar,
You are probably trying to connect to a locator from that client.xml but have not started one, as you seems to be confused about how locators/gemfire work. But I'm guessing here as you have not posted the error or exception you may be getting. Also note that in your client.xml you can replace the <locator> entry for <server> if you don't have or don't need to use a locator.
That said, I must ask if you do have any local sales/pre-sales person from Pivotal/VMWare that may be able to visit you and help on your POC. Are you already a customer or are working for a customer ? Maybe we can indicate someone to help you based on that info.
Your questions:
Q1 - From the GemFire user guide:
"The locator is a vFabric GemFire process that tells new, connecting members where running members are located and provides load balancing for server use. "
...
"You can run the locator standalone or co-located inside another GemFire process. Running your locators standalone provides the highest reliability and availability of the locator service as a whole. "
So no, you don't need to start a locator before/after your GemFire web application starts. But if you do want to use locator's functionalities, you can start one co-located with your web application or in a different process (jvm) depending on your needs. IF you want to start it with your web application, co-located would be the way to go. Please check the user guide for more details about it.
Q2 - Sorry, your question is very confusing, I didn't get it. But the GemFire user guide do provide a graphical and textual description of how GemFire works.
Q3 - Yes it is. Have you seen any problems by just using gemfire.jar ?
Q4 - If I remember that right, you've already asked it in one of your previous posts. Can you please check that answer ?
Q5 - No. As far as I know, such level of support wouldn't be free. But if you are a paying a customer, please answer my question above so we can ask if someone from Sales/PreSales can visit and help you on your POC.
Q6 - See Q5
Q7 - You may want to set gemfire.properties log level to config. It can also be done through the API. For example:
ClientCache cache = new ClientCacheFactory()
.addPoolLocator("localhost", 55221)
.setPoolSubscriptionEnabled(true)
.setPoolSubscriptionRedundancy(1)
.set("log-level", "error")
.create();
Best regards
~/William