Alteon Application Switch Operating System Application Guide
Load Balancing Special Services
Document ID: RDWR-ALOS-V2900_AG1302
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Figure 49: Server Load Balancing and IDS Load Balancing Across Multiple Alteons
Normally, the standby Alteon learns the source MAC address of clients in the copied packet from the
port that is connected to the interswitch link. The standby Alteon also learns the source MAC address
of the server when the server response packets enter the master Alteon and are flooded to the IDS
VLAN over the interswitch link.
In a high availability configuration, the standby Alteon becomes the master if the current master
Alteon fails. The new master Alteon forwards traffic between clients and servers. Because the MAC
addresses of the real servers are learned via the interswitch link port, the request packets from
clients are forwarded to the interswitch link port on the new master Alteon and are received by the
new standby Alteon. Because the standby Alteon does not forward traffic, the request packets do
not normally reach the real servers.
Alteon remedies this situation by allowing the administrator to disable learning of client and server
source MAC addresses over the interswitch link, thus ensuring that when failover occurs, the client
request packets reach the real servers.
To load balance IDS servers across multiple Alteons
1. Set up the IDS servers.
For information on setting up the IDS servers, see
Setting Up IDS Servers, page 311
. To
configure the IDS servers as real servers you must consider the following:
—
Connecting the IDS servers
—
Choosing the health check (in this case, use the SNMP health check)
—
Configuring the IP addresses
For more information on each of the above items, see
.
