L4-L7 setup

You need to read about load balance methods... but to sum up.. L4 LB consider send the next connection to the server that has less active connections... while the L7 LB consider send the next connection to the server that has best perfomance...

This explanation is too overall.. there are a lot more about it... I suggest you to read this link.

https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K6406

https://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/manuals/product/ltm-concepts-11-4-0/5.html - Topic Local Traffic Manager load balancing methods

Thank you for your response, but I know how a normal L4 and L7 load balancing works. I wanted to know about a specific setup where both L4 and L7 LB works hand in hand at the same time i.e L4-L7 setup.

• Have a L7 VIP created in a dedicated LTM with SSL offloading and etc etc profile you need. The pool of this would be the actual servers.
• Have a L4 VIP setup created in another dedicated LTM. Just have fastl4 profile in it. Now put the L7 VIP as the member in the L4 pool.

Thank you so much Jai for clearing this out. What is the use of such a setup apart from additional security ?

Sorry for the late reply. This L4-L7 setup is totally based on the requirements and the environment. Usually every infrastructures have DMZ env and its preferred to have structured load balancing setup to control L4 layer and L7 layer stuffs separately. Ultimately giving additional security :)