Sticky ip-netmask on ACE Behavior

[AJAZ NAWAZ]

Can somone please confirm if this sticky feature is treated for each 'srcIP session' or 'per srcIP' ?

thanks in advance

Ajaz Nawaz

[Ahmad Basel Jaber]

HI Ajaz,

For sticky IP address you have three options:

ACE/Test(config)# sticky ip-netmask 255.255.255.255 address ?

  both         Configure sticky based on both src and destn IP address

  destination  Configure sticky based on destination IP address

  source       Configure sticky based on source IP address

Based on your configuration the ACE will stick the traffic to the server chosen.

Best regards,

Ahmad

[Ahmad Basel Jaber]

Note: This is a layer 3 stickiness, so it is source IP only not session based stickiness.

[AJAZ NAWAZ]

Thanks Ahmad,

Ok so lets say I am the client and I open two browsers on my host laptop e.g. firefox and chrome. I target www.webpage.com using firefox hosted on destination server, and enter into a transaction based session. Then I decide to make a second purchase/transaction, but use my chrome browser this time. Just to confirm, will these second session hit the same destination server in the serverfarm because srcIP sticky netmask is configured?.

Remember that in terms of TCP this is another unique session and the src port is guaranteed to be different?.

regards

Ajaz Nawaz

[Ahmad Basel Jaber · Accepted solution]

Hi Ajaz,

If the sticky entry is still exsit in the ACE table for the first connection, then your second connection will hit the same server, thats why its called L3 stickiness, the ACE will not consider more than L3 information (IP address). If you still need to apply stickiness but you need more intelligent method, then L7 (cookie or HTTP) stickiness will be your option.

Best regards,

Ahmad

[AJAZ NAWAZ]

Thank you for confirming our suspicions, and to support your answer I have included below the following urls:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/net_mgmt/application_networking_manager/2.0/user/guide/UG_sticky_groups.html#wp1068908

https://supportforums.cisco.com/message/461301#461301

https://supportforums.cisco.com/message/3406727#3406727

https://supportforums.cisco.com/message/464188#464188

kind regards

Ajaz Nawaz