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jdalyasc_295749
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Aug 31, 2018

F5 LTM source address persistence is 5 hours too long?

We have an web application that we are currently using source address persistence on the virtual server. The application is set to keep connections active for 5 hours. This seems long to me but this how the application is configured. Currently the virtual server is using the standard source address persistence timeout of 180 seconds.

 

If I create a new source address persistence profile and set the timeout to 18000 seconds would this have any negative effect on the LTM. I know it would have to keep the persistence information for 5 hours but the site being load balanced does not have that much traffic maybe 50 users total.

 

Looking for suggestions, should the persistence timeout match the application timeout.

 

2 Replies

  • The most important consideration here is really about storage. An IP-based persistence profile maintains load balancing "state" in a local session table. It's probably okay in your case, given the small amount of actual users though.

     

    If you can support it, things HTTP cookie persistence are optimal. These are where the client maintains the state of the load balancing decision.

     

  • If the client supports cookies, the easiest option would simply be to enable default cookie persistence. Regular cookie persistence embeds the load balancing decision in the cookie itself. Using the jsession cookie would require you to store the state on the BIG-IP, which isn’t really better than IP persistence.