Manual Chapter : Load Balancing Access Policy Manager

Applies To:

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BIG-IP APM

  • 15.0.1, 15.0.0
Manual Chapter

Load Balancing Access Policy Manager

Overview: Load balancing BIG-IP APM with BIG-IP DNS

After you integrate BIG-IP DNS into a network with BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), or vice versa, the BIG-IP systems can communicate with each other. If Access Policy Manager (APM) is also installed on one of the BIG-IP systems with LTM, APM calculates virtual server scores and provides them to BIG-IP DNS.
The calculation is based on the number of active access sessions. APM calculates two usage scores and assigns the higher of the two to the virtual server:
  • One usage score is based on the BIG-IP system licensed maximum access concurrent sessions and the sum of the current active sessions on all the access profiles configured on the system.
  • The other usage score is based on the maximum concurrent user sessions configured on the access profile attached to the virtual server and the current active sessions count on the access profile.
A value of 0 indicates no capacity and a value of 100 means full capacity available on the device.
The calculations do not include connectivity session usage.
Use a BIG-IP DNS global load-balancing pool for BIG-IP DNS to load balance APM users based on the virtual server score. BIG-IP DNS uses virtual server score in the VS Score and Quality of Service load balancing methods for global load-balancing pools.
These tasks must already be complete before you begin:
  • BIG-IP DNS and APM must be installed and configured.
  • Either BIG-IP DNS must be integrated with other BIG-IP systems on a network or BIG-IP LTM must be integrated into a network with BIG-IP DNS.
  • The health monitors defined for the BIG-IP DNS and LTM servers must include bigip; otherwise, APM does not calculate virtual server scores and send them to BIG-IP DNS.

Creating a load balancing pool

Ensure that at least one virtual server exists in the configuration before you start to create a load balancing pool.
Create a pool of systems with Access Policy Manager to which the system can load balance global traffic.
  1. On the Main tab, click
    DNS
    GSLB
    Pools
    .
    The Pool List screen opens.
  2. Click
    Create
    .
    The New Pool screen opens.
  3. In the General Properties area, in the
    Name
    field, type a name for the pool.
    Names must begin with a letter, and can contain only letters, numbers, and the underscore (_) character.
    The pool name is limited to 63 characters.
  4. From the
    Type
    list, depending on the type of the system (IPv4 or IPv6), select either an
    A
    or
    AAAA
    pool type.
  5. In the Configuration area, for the
    Health Monitors
    setting, in the
    Available
    list, select a monitor type, and move the monitor to the
    Selected
    list.
    Hold the Shift or Ctrl key to select more than one monitor at a time.
  6. In the Members area, for the
    Load Balancing Method
    settings, select a method that uses virtual server score:
    • VS Score - If you select this method, load balancing decisions are based on the virtual server score only.
    • Quality of Service - If you select this method, you must configure weights for up to nine measures of service, including
      VS Score
      . Virtual server score then factors into the load balancing decision at the weight you specify.
  7. For the
    Member List
    setting, add virtual servers as members of this load balancing pool.
    The system evaluates the virtual servers (pool members) in the order in which they are listed. A virtual server can belong to more than one pool.
    1. Select a virtual server from the
      Virtual Server
      list.
    2. Click
      Add
      .
  8. Click
    Finished
    .

Creating a wide IP for BIG-IP DNS

Ensure that at least one load balancing pool exists in the configuration before you start creating a wide IP.
Create a wide IP to map an FQDN to one or more pools of virtual servers that host the content of the domain.
  1. On the Main tab, click
    DNS
    GSLB
    Wide IPs
    .
    The Wide IP List screen opens.
  2. Click
    Create
    .
    The New Wide IP List screen opens.
  3. In the General Properties area, in the
    Name
    field, type a name for the wide IP.
    You can use two different wildcard characters in the wide IP name: asterisk (*) to represent several characters and question mark (?) to represent a single character. This reduces the number of aliases you have to add to the configuration.
  4. From the
    Type
    list, select a record type for the wide IP.
  5. In the Pools area, for the
    Pool List
    setting, select the pools that this wide IP uses for load balancing.
    The system evaluates the pools based on the wide IP load balancing method configured.
    1. From the
      Pool
      list, select a pool.
      A pool can belong to more than one wide IP.
    2. Click
      Add
      .
  6. Click
    Finished
    .