"Toggle" primary/backup serverfarm with ACE

[torleifga]

Hi,

I have a very simple setup with two serverfarms, let's call them A and B, with only one rserver in each.

Is it possible to configure the ACE in the following way:

1) Serverfarm A handles traffic as long as it is available.

2) When serverfarm A fails, serverfarm B takes over.

3) When serverfarm A becomes available again, traffic should still go to serverfarm B.

4) When serverfarm B fails, serverfarm A takes over.¨

I have looked at the "serverfarm A backup B" construction, but as far as I understand it will send traffic back to A as soon as it is available.

I would like to keep sending traffic to B as long as it is available, even if A comes up. Kind of "toggling" the primary server, so to speak.

Thanks :-)

[Cesar Roque]

Hi,

You need to configure the backup serverfarm with the sticky option and that will give you the behavior you want.

Check this:

•If the sticky option is enabled, then:

–All  new sticky connections that match existing sticky table entries for the  real servers in the backup server farm are stuck to the same real  servers in the backup server farm.

–All  new non-sticky connections and those sticky connections that do not  have an entry in the sticky table are load balanced to the real servers  in the primary server farm.

•If the sticky option is not enabled, then the ACE load balances all new connections to the real servers in the primary server farm.

•Existing non-sticky connections to the servers in the backup server farm are allowed to complete in the backup server farm.

More details here:

http://tools.cisco.com/squish/8A3C0

Cesar R

[torleifga]

Hi,

thanks for your reply.

This is not quite what I am trying to achieve. Using the sticky option on the backup serverfarm will only ensure all existing (sticky) connections are load balanced to the backup serverfarm after the primary serverfarm is up again.

My requirement is that server(farm) A (which was originally the "primary" server) should not receive traffic until server(farm) B goes down. Not even new connections.

I.e: All traffic is sent to A until A fails. Then all traffic will be sent to B until B fails. Then all traffic will be sent to A until it fails, etc.

Note that I do not necessarily need to use a "primary/backup serverfarm" approach. Any configuration achieving the desired functionality will do :-)

[Jorge Bejarano]

Hello,

What Cesar has suggested you is what the ACE can do.

I am afraid that besides that, the ACE does not have any feature like what you are describing.

Jorge

[Beat.Traber]

Hi

Did you ever come to a solution for this?

We're facing exactly the same problem.

Beat