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Forum Discussion

gossett_151899's avatar
gossett_151899
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Aug 12, 2014

I have a very basic noob question. How do the servers in the load balancing pool know how to use the virtual server IP address?

My question is this: how do the servers in a load balancing pool know to use the virtual server IP address? Example:   server 1 server 2   virtual server IP x.x.x.x   how do server 1 and ser...
application delivery
LTM
management
Cory_50405's avatar
Cory_50405
Icon for Noctilucent rankNoctilucent
Aug 12, 2014

Typically end user traffic is directed to the virtual server, which then load balances the connection across the two backend servers. The return traffic from your servers will either route back out through the BIG-IP (specifying it as a default gateway for example) or the BIG-IP will use source NAT (SNAT) to ensure that all return traffic from the servers comes back through the BIG-IP.

 

Hope this answers your question. If not, keep 'em coming.

 

gossett_151899's avatar
gossett_151899
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Aug 12, 2014
Typically end user traffic is directed to the virtual server. This is my man concept I can't get my head around. How does the end user traffic know where to go. For example i'm sitting on a server doing my work. How does it even know to check with the virtual server in the F5 system. Maybe i'm over complicating it I just don't understand. Does anything need to be set up on the servers that are in the load balancing pool?