SLB ? what constitutes a connection?

[dnewell24]

When Cisco explains their IOS SLB feature they often use the term connections. What constitutes a connection? I assume a connection is a TCP/UDP flow. The scenario in question - if one client IP is communicating with the virtual server IP would the load balancer ?balance? or distribute each new TCP flow/connection between the real servers?

TIA,

Ryan

[Gilles Dufour]

Ryan,

a connection is equal to 2 flows.

1 flow from client to server and 1 flow from server to client.

A flow is define by ip addresses (source & destination) , the protocol and the ports (source & destination).

A loadbalancer will loadbalance every new connections. You can use a sticky function to guarantee that connections belonging to the same session go to the same server.

Existing sticky methods are based on src ip, cookies, html header tag, ...

Gilles.

[dnewell24]

Okay, thanks!