6

ISP Load Balancing

ISP load balancing

You may find that as your network grows, or network traffic increases, you need to add an additional connection to the internet. You can use this configuration to add an additional internet connection to your existing network. Figure 6.1 shows an additional internet connection:

Figure 6.1 An example of an additional internet connection

Configuring interfaces for the additional internet connection

An additional internet connection requires special interface configuration. You must set interfaces on the redundant BIG-IP Controller system (1a and 1b in Figure 6.1) to process source and destination addresses. Note that in a basic controller configuration, one interface is configured as an internal interface (source processing), and the other interface is configured as an external interface (destination processing).

In order to load balance outbound connections, you must turn destination processing on for the internal interface, and source processing on for the external interface. Use the following command to turn destination processing on for the internal interface, in this example, the interface name is exp1:

bigpipe interface exp1 dest enable

Use the following command to turn source processing on for the external interface, in this example, the interface name is exp0:

bigpipe interface exp0 source enable

Configuring virtual servers for an additional internet connection

An additional internet connection requires you to create a pool for the inside interfaces of the routers. After you create the pool, you can create the virtual servers that reference these pools.

Defining the pools for the additional internet connection

First, define the pool router_insides for the internal addresses of the routers. Use the following command to create the pool router_insides:

bigpipe pool router_insides { lb_mode rr member <router1>:0 member
<router2>:0 }

Replace <router1> and <router2> with external IP address of the respective routers. Also note that this example uses the global round robin load balancing method.

Finally, define the pool server_pool for the nodes that handle the requests to virtual server 205.100.19.22:80:

bigpipe pool server_pool { lb_mode rr member <server1>:80 member
<server2>:80 member <server3>:80 }

Replace <server1>, <server2>, and <server3> with internal IP address of the respective server. Also note that this example uses the global round robin load balancing method.

Defining the virtual servers for the additional internet connection

After you define the pools for the inside IP addresses of the routers, you can define the virtual servers for the redundant BIG-IP Controllers 1a and 1b.

• Configure the redundant controllers to load balance inbound connections
• Configure the redundant controllers to load balance outbound connections

Inbound configuration

First, configure the controllers to handle inbound traffic.

Create the virtual server for controllers 1a and 1b with the following command:

bigpipe vip 205.100.92.22:80 use pool server_pool

Configure the virtual server to use the last hop pool with the routers inside addresses:

bigpipe vip 205.100.92.22:http lasthop pool
router_insides

Outbound configuration

Next, configure controllers 1a and 1b to handle outbound traffic. Create a virtual server that sends traffic to the pool you created for the internal interfaces of the routers (router_insides). Use the following command to create the virtual server:

bipipe vip 0.0.0.0:0 exp1 use pool router_insides