server_data workflow - what am I doing wrong?

I don't quite understand what you're saying here. In particular, the phrase "single responses [...] that contain multiple combinations of http_wrapper and the encoded payload" doesn't make sense to me. Do you mean "single packets"? If so, then that is to be expected; there is no way to explicitly packetize responses to clients via iRules.

 

 

You're not calling any commands that would suspend iRule execution ("session", "persist", or "after"), so you're not running into the problem where new server data may suddenly "appear" before the release is processed.

 

 

I think you might be misunderstanding what TCP::release does. Because the BIG-IP is a full proxy, when you release this data on the serverside, it still has both the internal proxy and clientside TCP stack to traverse before it is sent out of the BIG-IP. It is very possible that they would repacketize the data in some fashion before sending it out to the client. You might be able to force the issue by adjusting things like the proxy buffer size and tcp profile options (window size, tcp options, &c.) so that the BIG-IP is not allowed to buffer up multiple responses into a single packet.

 

 

Again, this is all predicated on you meaning "single packet" above. If you meant something else, please try to clarify and I'll see what I can do.