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Albert_Coll's avatar
Albert_Coll
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Mar 11, 2021

Virtual Server sharing multiple ports

Hello, I've got a request to create a virtual server to balance four servers, each one with 5 different tcp ports:

Servers 1, 2, 3 & 4, each one with the TCP ports 25,80,110,143,443

 

And I have some doubts around the best way on how to implement it, so I would really appreciate any advice around it:

 

I can create a sigle virtual server with a port list including all these ports, and create a single pool of four servers, with 5 ports each (20 entries)

Or deploy five different virtual servers (one per tcp port) over the same vip, and each one assigned with its own dedicated pool for the specific port.

What do you think is the best approach?

 

Regards in advance.

Albert.

 

 

application delivery
BIG-IP
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  • PeteWhite's avatar
    PeteWhite
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    Mar 14, 2021

    Do you want the virtual server to have all 5 ports, or just the backend server? If you have a single virtual server listening on all 5 ports, and disable port translation then the same port will be used to the backend server but it depends whether all servers listen on all ports.

  • Albert_Coll's avatar
    Albert_Coll
    Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
    Mar 14, 2021

    Hi Pete, thanks for answering.

    I'll have 4 servers listening to 5 x tcp port each. And I've been told to create a service to balance all the incoming connections to all four servers.

    So I figure out two solutions:

    1) A single Virtual Server listening to all these 5 x TCP ports, by means of a Port List encompassing all five tcp pors, and balancing all incoming connections to the 4 x Back-End Servers, which in turn are listening to all 5xtcp ports each of them

    2) 5 Virtual Servers sharing the same VIP, each VS listening to one port only, and all of them balancing all incoming connections to the 4 x Back-End Servers.

     

    I guess that both solutions will work, But I have some doubts around which of both is the most polite. I guess that the second one is the best since I can enable specific Health Monitors for each Virtual Server since they are attending a single TCP port each. Instead of the first one in which I guess I should build a complex health monitor encompassing all 5 ports, by using some policies or irules.

    This is why I would be very grateful to you or anyone else whether you could provide me some advice around which one do you consider is the best.

     

    Best regards.

    Albert.