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Manual Chapter: Load balancing Access Policy Manager
Manual Chapter
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Overview: Load balancing BIG-IP APM with BIG-IP DNS

After you integrate BIG-IP® DNS into a network with BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager™ (LTM®), or vice versa, the BIG-IP systems can communicate with each other. If Access Policy Manager® (APM®) is also installed on one of the BIG-IP systems with LTM, APM calculates virtual server scores and provides them to BIG-IP DNS.

The calculation is based on the number of active access sessions. APM calculates two usage scores and assigns the higher of the two to the virtual server:

  • One usage score is based on the BIG-IP system licensed maximum access concurrent sessions and the sum of the current active sessions on all the access profiles configured on the system.
  • The other usage score is based on the maximum concurrent user sessions configured on the access profile attached to the virtual server and the current active sessions count on the access profile.

A value of 0 indicates no capacity and a value of 100 means full capacity available on the device.

Note: The calculations do not include connectivity session usage.

Use a BIG-IP DNS global load-balancing pool for BIG-IP DNS to load balance APM users based on the virtual server score. BIG-IP DNS uses virtual server score in the VS Score and Quality of Service load balancing methods for global load-balancing pools.

Task summary

These tasks must already be complete before you begin.

  • BIG-IP DNS and APM must be installed and configured.
  • Either BIG-IP DNS must be integrated with other BIG-IP systems on a network or BIG-IP LTM® must be integrated into a network with BIG-IP DNS.
  • The health monitors defined for the BIG-IP DNS and LTM servers must include bigip; otherwise, APM does not calculate virtual server scores and send them to BIG-IP DNS.

Task list

Creating a load balancing pool

Ensure that at least one virtual server exists in the configuration before you start to create a load balancing pool.
Create a pool of systems with Access Policy Manager® to which the system can load balance global traffic.
  1. On the Main tab, click DNS > GSLB > Pools .
    The Pool List screen opens.
  2. Click Create.
  3. In the General Properties area, in the Name field, type a name for the pool.
    Names must begin with a letter, and can contain only letters, numbers, and the underscore (_) character.
    Important: The pool name is limited to 63 characters.
  4. From the Type list, depending on the type of the system (IPv4 or IPv6), select either an A or AAAA pool type.
  5. In the Configuration area, for the Health Monitors setting, in the Available list, select a monitor type, and move the monitor to the Selected list.
    Tip: Hold the Shift or Ctrl key to select more than one monitor at a time.
  6. In the Members area, for the Load Balancing Method settings, select a method that uses virtual server score:
    • VS Score - If you select this method, load balancing decisions are based on the virtual server score only.
    • Quality of Service - If you select this method, you must configure weights for up to nine measures of service, including VS Score. Virtual server score then factors into the load balancing decision at the weight you specify.
  7. For the Member List setting, add virtual servers as members of this load balancing pool.
    The system evaluates the virtual servers (pool members) in the order in which they are listed. A virtual server can belong to more than one pool.
    1. Select a virtual server from the Virtual Server list.
    2. Click Add.
  8. Click Finished.

Creating a wide IP for BIG-IP DNS

Ensure that at least one load balancing pool exists in the configuration before you start creating a wide IP.
Create a wide IP to map an FQDN to one or more pools of virtual servers that host the content of the domain.
  1. On the Main tab, click DNS > GSLB > Wide IPs .
    The Wide IP List screen opens.
  2. Click Create.
    The New Wide IP List screen opens.
  3. In the General Properties area, in the Name field, type a name for the wide IP.
    Tip: You can use two different wildcard characters in the wide IP name: asterisk (*) to represent several characters and question mark (?) to represent a single character. This reduces the number of aliases you have to add to the configuration.
  4. From the Type list, select a record type for the wide IP.
  5. In the Pools area, for the Pool List setting, select the pools that this wide IP uses for load balancing.
    The system evaluates the pools based on the wide IP load balancing method configured.
    1. From the Pool list, select a pool.
      A pool can belong to more than one wide IP.
    2. Click Add.
  6. Click Finished.
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