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Forum Discussion

Narendren_S's avatar
Narendren_S
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Mar 02, 2014

Issue with GTM loadbalancing for Active-Active sites

Hi,   Below is the detail regarding the end users, application requirement, GTM/LTM setup and configuration.   Details about end users:   80% users are from 3 private LANs located at differ...
BIG-IP DNS
James_Thomson's avatar
James_Thomson
Icon for Employee rankEmployee
May 08, 2014

Unfortunately, you have come across the difficult challenge when attempting global load balancing when many people come through very few DNS servers.

 

The GTM is just a very powerful DNS server, but there's no way around the fact that it is just a DNS server at heart and never sees the client real IP address. If they are willing to put the GTM "in front of" their current DNS servers, then you could deploy the GTM in screening mode which means it will see the client's real IP address on the way to the real DNS servers.

 

http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_gtm/manuals/product/gtm-implementations-11-3-0/2.htmlconceptid

 

Outside of this solution, there really is no GTM-only solution. You would need to combine GTM with an LTM solution where the LTM looks at the requests as they come in to a virtual server and you redirect them to a site-specific DNS name possibly if they end up at the wrong place.

 

www.site.com - 1.1.1.1 - 2.2.2.2

 

w.www.site.com - 1.1.1.1

 

e.www.site.com - 2.2.2.2

 

LTM at site A has 1.1.1.1 and LTM at site B has 2.2.2.2. Those virtuals have an iRule that looks at client IP and does another topology lookup. If they are at the wrong site, redirect to other DNS name.