NSX Advanced Load Balancer SEs handle all data plane operations within the NSX Advanced Load Balancer by receiving and executing instructions from the Controller.
The SEs perform load balancing and all client and server-facing network interactions. They collect real-time telemetry data from application traffic flows.
In a typical load-balancing scenario, a client will communicate with a virtual service, an IP address, and a port hosted in NSX Advanced Load Balancer by an SE. The virtual service internally passes the connection through a number of profiles. The SE can terminate and proxy the client TCP connection, terminate SSL/TLS, and proxy the HTTP request for HTTP traffic. Once the request is validated, it is forwarded internally to a pool to choose an available back-end server.
A new TCP connection then originates from the SE. This connection uses the IP address of the SE on the internal network as the client request’s source IP address. Return traffic also follows the same path. The client communicates exclusively with the virtual service IP address, not the back-end server IP address.
Data Plane High Availability
NSX Advanced Load Balancer SE groups support the following HA modes:
Elastic HA: Provides fast recovery for individual virtual services following the failure of the SE. Depending on the mode, the virtual service is already running on multiple SEs or is quickly placed on another SE. The following modes of cluster HA are supported:
Active/Active
N + M
Legacy HA: Emulates a 2-device hardware active/standby HA configuration operation. The active SE carries all the traffic for a virtual service placed on it. The other SE in the pair is the standby for the VS, carrying no traffic when the active SE is healthy.
