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colinw_190728's avatar
colinw_190728
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Mar 06, 2015

Load Balancing Microsoft Direct Access 2012 Servers

Hi, We have inherited a customer that have f5's deployed & one of the VIPs is load balancing some direct access servers. Currently the load balancing method is set for "Observed (Node)" & the profile is using a default persistence profile of "dest_addr". All of the connections are being pushed to the 1st server in the pool. We are thinking of changing the load balancing method to "Least connections (Node)" & the persistence profile to use either "cookie" or "ssl". My questions are, has anyone set this up & have any different recommendations & what is the impact on traffic when making these changes? i.e. would all existing connections be dropped & will any devices that were previously connected immediately use the new persistence method on reconnection?

 

Thanks Colin

 

application delivery
LTM
microsoft
performance

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  • Ryan_Korock_46's avatar
    Ryan_Korock_46
    Historic F5 Account
    Mar 06, 2015

    What access protocols are you using Colin? IP-HTTPS, Teredo?

     

    The persistence method is what is causing the clumping. Dest_addr is best used when load balancing transparent devices, such as a routers. I would definitely recommend changing that. In my testing, I did not see a need to set persistence. If you do set it, I would recommend setting it to source IP. Cookie will not work, as the BIG-IP is not able to inspect the payload (without doing SSL termination/re-encryption, which is not currently supported by MSFT for Direct Access).

     

    My recommendation would be to use Least Connections for the load balancing method, and no persistence.

     

    Changing lb & persistence methods should not have an effect on existing connections. They will continue without disruption.

     

    • John_Tonks_2768's avatar
      John_Tonks_2768
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      Jan 30, 2017

      You would need persistence for Remote Manage Out, else your would be constantly flipping between server connection Servers all day.

       

      Also depending on how many clients you have this might risk port exhaustion with all this flip flopping about.

       

  • colinw_190728's avatar
    colinw_190728
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    Mar 09, 2015

    Ryan, I believe the access protocol in use is just IP-HTTPS.

     

    Thanks for the response Colin