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

  • Verify that you are logged in as an organization administrator.

  • Verify that your system administrator has enabled load balancing on the NSX edge gateway.
  • Verify that your system administrator has assigned at least one service engine group to the edge gateway.

Procedure

  1. In the top navigation bar, click Networking and click the Edge Gateways tab.
  2. Click the NSX edge gateway for which you want to configure a load balancer pool.
  3. Under Load Balancer, click Pools, and then click Add.
  4. 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.
  5. Add a member to the server pool.
    1. Click the Members tab and click Add.
    2. To add an IP address for a pool member, select IP Address and enter an IP address.
    3. To add a group pool member, select Groups and select a group from the list.
    4. Toggle on the State option to enable the pool member.
    5. (Optional) Add a custom port for the server pool member.
      The port number defaults to the destination port that you entered for the pool.
    6. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. Click Save.

What to do next

Create a Virtual Service in the VMware Cloud Director Tenant Portal.