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aled_evans91_33's avatar
aled_evans91_33
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Jul 02, 2018

F5 equivalent of Alteon's buddy helthchecks

Hi all,

 

I'm in the process of migrating old Radware Alteon load balancers onto F5 kit. On the Alteons they have what's known as a "buddy health check". Basically what it does is monitor a second node, and if that goes down then the first node is marked as down too.

 

For example, Server A is configured to have Server B as its buddy. If the health check for Server B fails, the load balancer will mark Server A as down.

 

I'm aware this could be done using Priority Group Activation, however in this case Server A is being health checked on port 3000 whilst Server B is health checked on port 3001. Data for both is on port 7021.

 

Is this setup achievable on an F5?

 

Thanks!

 

alteon
application delivery
health check
iRules
load balancer
LTM
radware
  • nathe's avatar
    nathe
    Icon for Cirrocumulus rankCirrocumulus
    Jul 02, 2018

    Sounds like an "Alias Address" health monitor configuration. Normally you would create a health monitor, say HTTP, and apply it to a pool. In your situation you could assign it to the server A pool member and then create a new HTTP custom monitor with the Alias Address of Server B. Assign this to the member too and you could change Availability Requirement to All. This way if Server B went down this monitor would fail and take Server A down too.

     

    See the following and Alias Address section: Monitors Concepts

     

    Hope this helps,

     

    N