Methodologies for Scaling SLB Environments February 2006 Network Working Group Internet Draft Z. Naseh Document: draft-naseh-scaling-slb-00.txt Cisco Systems Expires: August 2006 February 2006 Methodologies for Scaling Server Load Balancing Environments Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. Naseh Expires - August 2006 [Page 1] Methodologies for Scaling SLB Environments February 2006 Abstract This document defines details of several design methodologies and current best practices for scaling server load balancing (a.k.a. content switching) environments in today’s enterprise data centers. The scenarios covered in this document covers utilization of protocols and technologies ranging from IPv4 routing to DNS for scalability of server load balancing. Table of Contents 1. Introduction...................................................2 2. Benefits of Scaling Content Switching..........................3 2.1 Scalability................................................3 2.2 Performance................................................3 3. Scaling Methodologies..........................................4 3.1 Distribution of Applications...............................4 3.2 Using DNS for Application Scalability......................4 3.3 Using IP Routing for Application Scalability...............4 4. Application Distribution Approach..............................5 5. DNS-Based Scaling Approach.....................................5 5.1 Predictable Traffic Flow...................................7 5.2 Ease of Management and Maintenance.........................7 6. IP Routing Based Scaling Approach..............................7 7. Scaling Beyond Server Capacity.................................8 8. IANA Considerations............................................9 9. Security Considerations........................................9 10. Acknowledgments...............................................9 11. Author's Addresses............................................9 12. Copyright Notice..............................................9 13. Disclaimer....................................................9 14. Intellectual Property........................................10 1. Introduction An enterprise Data Center is a complex environment which is used to host mission critical internal and external applications servers, data bases and data storage devices. The Data Center infrastructure is tied together using Layer2 and Layer3 devices. The security of the compute infrastructure and the networking devices is made possible using firewalls and intrusion detection devices. In order to scale the applications, the key service provided within the data center is server load balancing. This is also known as content switching. The idea is to distribute user requests across a group or farm of servers hosting the same application or daemon. Naseh Expires - August 2006 [Page 2] Methodologies for Scaling SLB Environments February 2006 In this document will focus on how a load-balanced environment can be scaled. With the passage of time as the user base increases, the key question that comes up is how to scale an application such that user experience is not compromised. Typically, an application is scaled simply by adding more servers to the load-balanced server farms within the same data center or by replicating the application in another data center. Having the same application exist in two in- service data centers achieves dual purposes - one being scalability and the other being disaster recovery. There are several ways to provide redundancy between the data centers. These approaches are not covered in this memo. This document introduces the concepts and design methodologies of scaling load-balancing services within a single data center. It will be discussed how load-balanced applications can be scaled using DNS or IP and also how they are scaled when server capacity within a load balancer is maximized. In other words, we will cover how the same application is load balanced in two different SLB devices, the approaches to SLB device selection, and the methods of scaling when the servers within an SLB device have reached their maximum capacity or have failed health checks. 2. Benefits of Scaling Content Switching The motivations behind scaling content switching within a data center are similar to the motivations for server load balancing. Scalability and performance are the main reasons behind server load balancing in general. 2.1 Scalability A server load-balancing device can be fully utilized in connections per second, concurrent connections, probes or health checks to servers, slow path or process-switching performance, or software configuration limits. Once any of the above-mentioned functionality is maximized, another server load-balancing device would have to be deployed. 2.2 Performance Performance of the load balancer in terms of packet switching and raw throughput is another key reason to deploy multiple pairs of server load-balancing devices in the same data center. To overcome performance limitations of the load balancer, one option is to design the SLB device so that only load-balanced traffic passes through the SLB devices. If this does not help, another pair of load balancers Naseh Expires - August 2006 [Page 3] Methodologies for Scaling SLB Environments February 2006 can be deployed for a different application or the same application. In the next few sections, several design methodologies that can be used to scale SLB environments will be discussed. 3. Scaling Methodologies In this section, some of the design approaches and technologies that can be used to scale within a data center will be introduced. The key scaling methodologies are distributing applications over multiple SLB devices, using smart DNS to distribute the same application traffic over multiple SLB devices and using IP Routing to distribute the same application traffic over multiple SLB devices. 3.1 Distribution of Applications Distributing applications across multiple SLB devices is the simplest and the most manageable of all the design approaches. The idea is to segment an existing fully utilized SLB device’s configuration with respect to applications. One set of applications will reside in the old SLB device, and a different set of applications will reside in a new SLB device. In this approach, each application owner would have to service a particular SLB device. Routing infrastructure changes or DNS changes are not required. 3.2 Using DNS for Application Scalability In a situation where the SLB device is overloaded by a single application, distribution of applications will not help. In that case, the particular application traffic will have to be split across multiple pairs of SLB devices. One way to do this is to host the application using different sets of server farms and different virtual IP addresses on separate pairs of SLB devices. A smart DNS server (a DNS device that can do health checks and verify availability of the virtual IP addresses) can be used to distribute the users across the two virtual IP addresses being hosted on separate pairs of SLB devices. A typical smart DNS appliance does have source IP-based stickiness or source IP-based hash functionality available that can be used to provide client persistence to a particular SLB device. 3.3 Using IP Routing for Application Scalability In environments where the use of DNS is not desired and where the client base is internal, an IP-based load-balancing solution can be Naseh Expires - August 2006 [Page 4] Methodologies for Scaling SLB Environments February 2006 used to scale the SLB device. This design requires the application to be hosted using different sets of server farms but same Virtual IP address on separate pairs of SLB devices. Based on the availability of the servers, the Virtual IP address will be injected into the routing table of the adjacent routers. For this methodology the SLB device will need to establish routing peering with its adjacent router. If servers are operational in both SLB devices, then two host-based routes for the same Virtual IP address will show up in the routing domain. As client requests are routed, they will end up at the SLB device closest to them in terms of routing metrics. 4. Application Distribution Approach The application distribution approach is fairly straight forward conceptually. It requires the configurations of the SLB device to be split along the lines of different applications or business units or owners. The segmented configuration resides on different SLB devices. The complex part of this approach is to distribute the server resources. The servers belonging to a particular application should have their default gateway pointing to the SLB device hosting that specific application. This becomes difficult when load-balanced servers associated with different applications reside in the same VLAN. To ensure that load-balanced server return traffic traverses the appropriate SLB device, we can take several measures. These methods range from re-IP addressing and placement of the servers in appropriate VLANs behind the SLB device to redesigning the SLB environment to a one-armed design approach where the physical and logical presence of the application servers does not matter. For example, partner.example.com and shop.example.com resided on the same SLB device. As the usage of the SLB device went to 100 percent, clients started experiencing delays. These delays were resolved by splitting the SLB device configurations into two different units, one hosting partner.example.com and the other shop.example.com. 5. DNS-Based Scaling Approach DNS is typically used to load balance applications across multiple data centers. This is known as global site (or server) load balancing (GSLB). Similarly, we can use DNS to perform GSLB within a data center to scale SLB devices. The DNS-based scaling approach is simple to integrate in most existing infrastructures and can be migrated over time. For example, a pair of intelligent DNS appliances is deployed within a data center and the DNS appliances are authoritative for the domains Naseh Expires - August 2006 [Page 5] Methodologies for Scaling SLB Environments February 2006 shop.example.com and partner.example.com. These applications are load balanced by the SLB pairs within the data center. Each SLB pair load balances traffic across a local set of servers for the same application. Let’s take the example of shop.example.com. The virtual IP addresses for this are 10.11.12.15 in data center segment 1 and 10.12.13.15 in data center segment 2. The idea is that if any client would like to access shop.example.com, the DNS appliance will respond with the next available VIP, 10.12.13.15 or 10.11.12.15, based on the load- balancing algorithm. The load-balancing methods on the DNS appliance range from simple round robin to static proximity based on the requestor’s source IP address. Let’s say a client with an IP address in subnet 10.11.0.0 queries the DNS appliance; the response should have the VIP of data center segment 1 unless that VIP is down. The DNS appliance accomplishes that by looking at the source IP of the requestor. If the source IP is that of a client or server in subnet 10.11.0.0, for example, then answer within the DNS response has the data center segment 1 VIP (10.11.12.15). Following are the steps of DNS resolution: 1. A client with IP address 10.11.42.31 issues a DNS query for shop.example.com. 2. The internal example.com name server receives the request and responds with both DNS appliances’ IP addresses; that is, 10.11.10.171 and 10.12.11.161. 3. The client sends the request to the first member in the answer list; that is, 10.11.10.171. (If 10.11.10.171 times out, the client queries 10.12.11.161.) 4. DNS appliance inspects the query and finds a match for shop.example.com; the policy configured on the DNS appliance indicates to look at the source IP address of the requestor and respond back appropriately. Static policy configuration is similar to that detailed here: a. If the source address is 10.11.0.0/16, then respond with 10.11.12.15; if 10.11.12.15 is down, respond with 10.12.13.15. b. If the source address is 10.12.0.0/16, then respond with 10.12.13.15; if 10.12.13.15 is down, respond with 10.11.12.15. c. Alternatively, do a source IP hash and balance between 10.11.12.15 and 10.12.13.15. 5. As the client gets the response of the local SLB device VIP (10.11.12.15), it initiates the TCP connect to that VIP. The DNS-based solution meets the requirements of proximity and stickiness to the selected SLB device. The key advantages of the DNS- based approach are: . Predictable traffic flow Naseh Expires - August 2006 [Page 6] Methodologies for Scaling SLB Environments February 2006 . Ease of management and maintenance of each SLB node 5.1 Predictable Traffic Flow The DNS-based solution is independent of routing protocol issues like flaps (rapid fluctuation of routing information) or slow convergence. The decision about which SLB device will be used is made before the session is initiated by the data center client. The SLB node selection is based on the IP address and configured policy, thus the flow is known. The configured decision will be taken unless the SLB node in the policy is unavailable. Several balancing methods similar to the ones used in SLB devices are available to load balance client DNS requests. 5.2 Ease of Management and Maintenance In the DNS approach previously mentioned, the DNS appliance is configured with the virtual IP addresses on the SLB devices in all the data center segments. In order to take down an application, services, or the entire SLB node, the process is fairly simple. The service can be easily suspended on the DNS appliance by a click of a button. 6. IP Routing Based Scaling Approach The IP Routing based approach works best when the client base is internal or in a controlled routing environment. In this solution, the application is hosted on multiple SLB devices with different servers but the same Virtual IP address. In this design methodology the SLB device injects a host route for the Virtual IP address in the adjacent router as long as at least one of the servers in the respective server farm is operational. Extensive probing is available on the SLB device to check the health of the server and the appropriate application daemon that runs on the server. When we use this method on multiple SLB devices hosting the same application with the same Virtual IP address, the routing domain will have multiple paths to the same VIP address. The next hop on these host routes will be the SLB devices IP address. As the user request enters the routing domain, it is sent to the SLB device closest to the user based on the routing metrics. Naseh Expires - August 2006 [Page 7] Methodologies for Scaling SLB Environments February 2006 7. Scaling Beyond Server Capacity In the preceding sections; it is discussed how to scale SLB devices beyond their capacity limits. In this section, it will be discussed how to scale the server’s capacity within an SLB device. Let’s say we have an SLB device with 10 servers configured on it for a particular resource-intensive web-based application. Each server is capable of serving only 100 user sessions concurrently. So at any given time, the SLB environment can service 1000 users - beyond that, if any new user is load balanced to a server, the server becomes unstable. There are several approaches to resolve this server capacity issue. These solutions range from increasing the server CPU/memory resources to using multiple features on the SLB devices to form a scalable environment. The complex but comprehensive solutions rely on the max connections feature on the real server or virtual server level. The max connections configuration within a real server informs the SLB device that the server can only handle the configured number of sessions concurrently. This protects the real servers from excessive user requests that may in turn cause them to become unstable. The idea is not to disrupt the existing users’ sessions. So, the first step is to detect the max connections on the servers and the second step is to take appropriate action. If the SLB device detects that all the servers in the server farm of a particular application have reached their maximum capacity, any of the following measures can be taken: . Have a server that will serve a turn-away page or a sorry message to the clients. The user will be informed to return to the site at a later time. . Send an HTTP 302 redirect to the new clients and send them to another SLB device hosting the same application. . Deploy the SLB devices in conjunction with a smart DNS appliance like DNS appliance. When max connections are reached, the SLB device will inform the DNS appliance to service the user DNS query with a VIP from another SLB device. . Send the user request to another SLB device, but source translate the packet. This ensures that the packet from the second SLB device will traverse the first SLB device. In other words, the session path will be symmetric. The overall solution can use a combination of approaches to come up with an environment that best services the hosted application. The document introduced the concepts and design methodologies of scaling load-balancing services within a single data center. The memo covered how load-balanced applications can be scaled using DNS or IP, and how they are scaled when server capacity within a load balancer is maximized. Naseh Expires - August 2006 [Page 8] Methodologies for Scaling SLB Environments February 2006 8. IANA Considerations This document requests no action by IANA. 9. Security Considerations The scenarios and design methods identified in this document should only be implemented in accordance with the network security policies. The SLB environment identified MUST be behind a firewall perimeter. Components of effective information security architecture, including network infrastructure and server infrastructure security, physical security, security awareness, incident monitoring and response, audit, and security improvement processes are assumed to be in place and active. 10. Acknowledgments The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Haroon Khan of Cisco Systems, Inc. 11. Author's Addresses Zeeshan Naseh Cisco Systems San Jose, California znaseh@cisco.com 12. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. 13. Disclaimer This document and the information contained herein are provided on an 'AS IS' basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE Naseh Expires - August 2006 [Page 9] Methodologies for Scaling SLB Environments February 2006 INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.' 14. Intellectual Property The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the ISOC's procedures with respect to rights in ISOC Documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at http://www.ietf.org/ipr. The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf- ipr@ietf.org. Naseh Expires - August 2006 [Page 10]