L4 Load Balancer (L4LB)

Netris L4 Load Balancer (L4LB) leverages SoftGate(Linux router) nodes to provide Layer-4 load balancing services, including on-demand cloud load balancing with native integration with Kubernetes.

Enabling L4LB service

L4 Load Balancer service requires at least one SoftGate node to be available in a given Site, as well as at least one IP address assignment (purpose=load balancer).

The IP address pool for L4LB can be defined in the Net→IPAM section by adding an Allocation and setting the purpose field to ‘load-balancer’. You can define multiple IP pools for L4LB at any given site. See the below example.

Example: Adding a load-balancer IP pool assignment.

Add an IP Allocation

Screenshot: Listing of Net→IPAM after adding a load-balancer assignment

List IP Subnets

Consuming L4LB service

This guide describes how to request an L4 Load Balancer using GUI. For Kubernetes integration, check the Kubenet section.

Click +add under Services→L4 Load Balancer to request an L4LB service.

Add new L4 Load Balancer fields are described below:

General fields

  • Name - Unique name.

  • Protocol - TCP or UDP.

  • Tenant - Requestor Tenant should have access to the backend IP space.

  • Site - Site where L4LB service is being requested for. Backends should belong on this site.

  • State - Administrative state.

Frontend

  • Address - Frontend IP address to be exposed for this L4LB service. “Assign automatically” will provide the next available IP address from the defined load-balancer pool. Alternatively, users can select manually from the list of available addresses.

  • Port - TCP or UDP port to be exposed.

Health-check

  • Type - Probe backends on service availability.

    • None - load balance unconditionally.

    • TCP - probe backend service availability through TCP connect checks.

    • HTTP - probe backend service availability through HTTP GET checks.

  • Timeout(ms) - Probe timeout in milliseconds.

  • Request path - HTTP request path.

Backend

  • +Add - add a backend host.

  • Address - IP address of the backend host.

  • Port - Service port on the backend host.

  • Enabled - Administrative state of particular backend.