The NSX Edge services gateways (ESG) implement load balancing in NSX for vSphere.
An ESG has both Layer 4 and Layer 7 engines that offer different features.
| Feature | Layer 4 Engine | Layer 7 Engine |
|---|---|---|
| Protocols | TCP | TCP HTTP HTTPS (SSL Pass-through) HTTPS (SSL Offload) |
| Load balancing method | Round Robin Source IP Hash Least Connection |
Round Robin Source IP Hash Least Connection URI |
| Health checks | TCP | TCP HTTP (GET, OPTION, POST) HTTPS (GET, OPTION, POST) |
| Persistence (keeping client connections to the same back-end server) | TCP: SourceIP | TCP: SourceIP, MSRDP HTTP: SourceIP, Cookie HTTPS: SourceIP, Cookie, ssl_session_id |
| Connection throttling | No | Client Side: Maximum concurrent connections, Maximum new connections per second Server Side: Maximum concurrent connections |
| High availability | Yes | Yes |
| Monitoring | View VIP (Virtual IP), Pool and Server objects and stats via CLI and API View global stats for VIP sessions from the vSphere Web Client |
View VIP, Pool and Server objects and statistics by using CLI and API View global statistics about VIP sessions from the vSphere Web Client |
| Layer 7 manipulation | No | URL block, URL rewrite, content rewrite |
