ace question: load-balancing predictor versus stickyness

[gnijs]

Hello,

I am just starting to learn ACE configuration, and have a simple question:

i feel that predictor load balancing and stickyness are nearly the same thing.

What is the difference between:

- load-balancing based on source-ip

- versus. stickyness based on source-ip

and

- load-balancing based on HTTP cookie

- versus stickyness based on HTTP cookie

I do understand that stickyness is often configured when clients are behind proxies, but most of the stickyness on higher level L7, are also available as load-balancing predictor method.

[Kanwaljeet Singh]

Hi,

Load balancing based on source IP means that as long as source IP remains same, the packet will be sent to the same server. This is nothing but stickyness based on source IP and  same is for L7.

Depending on the load-balancing algorithim or predictor that you configure, the ACE performs a series of checks and calculations to determine which server can best service each client request. The ACE bases server selection on several factors including the source or destination address, cookies, URLs, HTTP headers, or the server with the fewest connections with respect to load.

Predictors are for selection based on L7 and L3 parameters wheres stickyness is to maintain the session to a particular server as long as that parameter is there in the packet.

Regards,

Kanwal

[Jorge Bejarano · Accepted solution]

Hey,

You may find this thread interesting:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/community/netpro/data-center/application-network/blog/2010/12/02/datacenter-troubleshooting-guide--day-4

It talks more or less about your queries.

Jorge

[gnijs]

Very interesting document indeed.