Manual Chapter : Configuring Persistence

Applies To:

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BIG-IP LTM

  • 15.0.1, 15.0.0
Manual Chapter

Configuring Persistence

About load balancing with persistence

Configure persistence through attributes in the session profile. Attaching a persistence profile to Virtual server is an invalid configuration and results in a configuration error.
There are two persistence types (persist-types) available;
session
(default) and
none
. If persist-type is set to
none
, persistence is disabled. When persist-type is set to
session
, the persist-key specifies if BIG-IP persists on
Call-ID
(the default value),
Src-Addr
(source address), or
custom
.
Persistence records are kept in SessionDB and therefore synchronized between TMMs and blades.
The custom persist-key is specifically for iRules to create customer specific persistence keys. An iRule script may modify the message's persist-key during the SIP_REQUEST, SIP_RESPONSE or MR_INGRESS events. The value of the message's persist key after MR_INGRESS event is used for persistence lookup, if the persist-key is set to
Custom
.

About session persistence

Session persistence avoids a route lookup based on state recorded on the BIG-IP system. It guarantees those messages carrying the same persistence key are going to be delivered to the same (L4) peer.
Persistence entries are keyed by a value extracted from a message initiating a new session. The value used for the persist entry key depends on the persist-key configuration attribute.
When an existing persistence record is matched, the current message is delivered to the same (L4) destination avoiding a route lookup and load balancing (LB) pick.
Recommendation: Set the
persist-timeout
to be greater than the transaction timeout, specified in the SIP session configuration, as the lesser of the two is used when creating the persist record on receiving of the initial SIP request message. The initial SIP request can be
INVITE/SUBSCRIBE/MESSAGE
. Upon receiving of the response for the initial SIP Request message the persistence record is updated with the persist-timeout value. (For any subsequent responses received the persist timeout is updated for the persist record.)

Example of basic load balancing with session persistence

This diagram shows a call from Call-ID 1-2883 @10.20.0.2 being load balanced to Server 10.10.10.2. And it also shows a call from 1-3000@10.20.0.6 being load balanced to 10.10.10.7, and the persist records created from these calls when persistence is enabled with a key of Call-ID.
Basic load balancing with session persistence example
Basic load balancing with session persistence example

Configure basic load balancing

In a route, you must specify at least wildcard entries for UDP and TCP.
Route entry - ["", "", "", peer-udp] (Wildcard entry, default route for UDP) Route entry - ["", "", "", peer-tcp] (Wildcard entry, default route for TCP)

Load Balancing Configuration

ltm pool udp-default-pool { members { 10.10.0.10:5060 { address 10.10.0.10 } 10.10.0.11:5060 address 10.10.0.11 } } } ltm message-routing sip peer peer-udp { pool udp-default-pool } ltm message-routing sip route default-route-udp { peers { peer-udp } } ltm message-routing sip profile router siprouter-lb { routes { default-route-udp } } ltm virtual sip-lb-udp { destination 10.20.0.60:5060 mask 255.255.255.255 ip-protocol udp profiles { udp sipsession siprouter-lb } }