Add a Load Balancer Server Pool

A server pool is a group of one or more servers that you configure to run the same application and to provide high availability.

Prerequisites

• Enable load balancing on the NSX-T edge gateway.
• Assign at least one service engine group to the edge gateway.

Procedure

1. From the top navigation bar, select Resources and click Cloud Resources.
2. In the left panel, click Edge Gateways.
3. Click the NSX-T Data Center edge gateway for which you want to configure a load balancer pool.
4. Under Load Balancer, click Pools, and then click Add.
5. Configure the general settings for the load balancer pool.
   1. Enter a meaningful name and, optionally, a description for the server pool.
   2. Select an algorithm balancing method.
      The load balancing algorithm defines how incoming connections are distributed among the members of the server pool.
      The algorithm methods available to you differ depending on the feature set that you enabled on the edge gateway - Standard or Premium.

      Option	Description
      Least Connections	Use this method to send new connections to the server that currently has the fewest connections.
      Weighted Least Connections	Send new connections to pool members based on the weight assigned to each pool member.
      Round Robin	Send new connections to the next eligible server in the pool in a sequential order.
      Weighted Round Robin	Send connections to pool members based on the weight assigned to each pool member.
      Fastest Response	Available in Premium. New connections are sent to the server that provides the fastest response to new connections or requests.
      Consistent Hash	New connections are distributed across the servers by using the IP address of the client to generate an IP hash key.
      Least Load	Available in Premium. New connections are sent to the server with the lightest load, regardless of the number of connections that server has.
      Fewest Servers	Available in Premium. Instead of attempting to distribute all connections or requests across all servers, the load balancer determines the fewest number of servers required to satisfy the current client load.
      Random	Available in Premium. The load balancer picks servers at random.
      Fewest Tasks	Available in Premium. Load is adaptively balanced, based on the server feedback.
      Core Affinity	Available in Premium. Each CPU core uses a subset of servers, and each server is used by a subset of cores. Essentially, it provides a many-to-many mapping between servers and cores.

   3. To enable the server pool upon creation, toggle on the State option.
   4. Enter a default destination server port to be used for the traffic to the pool member.
   5. (Optional) In the Graceful Disable Timeout text box, enter the maximum time in minutes to gracefully deactivate a pool member.
      The virtual service waits for the specified time before closing the existing connections to deactivated members.
   6. (Optional) To enable a passive health monitor, toggle on the Passive Health Monitor option.
   7. (Optional) Select an active health monitor.

      Option	Description
      HTTP	An HTTP request and response are used to validate the health.
      HTTPS	Used against HTTPS encrypted web servers to validate the health.
      TCP	A TCP connection is used to validate the health.
      UDP	A UDP datagram is used to validate the health.
      PING	An ICMP ping is used to validate the health.

6. Add a member to the server pool.
   1. Click the Members tab and click Add.
   2. Enter an IP address for the pool member.
   3. Toggle on the State option to enable the pool member.
   4. (Optional) Add a custom port for the server pool member.
      The port number defaults to the destination port that you entered for the pool.
   5. Enter a ratio for the pool member.
      The ratio of each pool member denotes the traffic that goes to each server pool member. A server with a ratio of 2 gets twice as much traffic as a server with a ratio of 1. The default value is 1.
7. On the SSL Settings tab, configure the SSL settings for validating the certificates presented by the members of the load balancer pool.
   1. To enable SSL, toggle on the SSL Enable option.
   2. To hide certificates with private keys and see a list of CA certificates only, select the Hide service certificates check box.
8. To enable common name check for server certificates, toggle on the Common Name Check option and enter up to 10 domain names for the pool.
9. Click Save.

What to do next

Create a Virtual Service.