#load-balancing

In this approach, load balancing is fully distributed, with each client directly responsible for routing requests to an available microservice. Note that in this model each local load balancer handles all traffic for its local instance regardless of which or how many other microservices it communicates with.

This distributed nature adds some complexity to the load balancing system: you need some services discovery, distributed health checking, etc... In some way, it is an extension to the Ambassador pattern that some people recommends for microservices, but with the additional load balancing thing...

pfSense Multi-WAN Configuration: Part Seven

Changing the weight of a WAN gateway in pfSense 2.2.4. There are some scenarios where you may want to only use failover. Some pfSense users have a secondary backup Internet connection with a low bandwidth limit, and only want to use that connection if their primary connection fails, and only while it is down. Failover pools allow you to do this. Another possible usage for failover pools is when…

pfSense Multi-WAN Configuration: Part Six

In the previous articles, we covered the basics of multi-WAN configuration with pfSense. In this article, we will cover how to tailor your configuration to your particular needs. pfSense Multi-WAN: Bandwidth Aggregation and Service Segregation One of the main reasons for configuring a multi-WAN setup is bandwidth aggregation. With load balancing, pfSense can help you accomplish this. The caveat,…

pfSense Multi-WAN Configuration: Part Five

Viewing the load balancer status in pfSense 2.2.4. Once you have configured your multi-WAN setup, you will want to verify its functionality. In this article, we will cover how to test each component of your multi-WAN setup. If you have configured failover, you will want to test it after completing your configuration to ensure it functions as you desire, otherwise you might be in for an unpleasant…

pfSense Multi-WAN Configuration: Part Four

Setting up multi-WAN load balancing with failover in pfSense 2.2.4 The load balancing functionality in pfSense allows you to distribute traffic over multiple WAN connections in a round-robin fashion. This is done on a per-connection basis. A monitoring IP is configured for each connection, which pfSense will ping, if the pings fail, the interface is marked as down and removed from all pools until…

VMware NIC Load Balancing and Teaming, the Math

While doing some research for NSX setups I found the urge to delve deeper into the calculations of some of ESXi’s load-balancing and teaming types that are available, below I have outlined the scenarios, calculations (where appropriate) and recommendations when it comes to choosing a NIC load balancing and teaming type. (more…)