Deploying Load Balancers

Load balancers serve as a proxy between virtualized infrastructure and clients in the outside network. This is essential in OpenStack since it can be used in a scenario where the infrastructure dynamically starts new VMs and adds them into the load balancing pool in order to mitigate inaccessibility of services.

Create Load Balancers

To create a load balancer, first prepare a pool of VMs with operational service you wish to balance to. Next create the load balancer in the same network and assign the pool as well as listeners on specific ports.

openstack loadbalancer create --name my_loadbalancer --vip-subnet-id my_subnet_id --wait

openstack loadbalancer listener create --name my_listener --protocol TCP --protocol-port 80 --wait my_loadbalancer

openstack loadbalancer pool create --name my_pool --lb-algorithm ROUND_ROBIN --listener my_listener --protocol TCP --wait

openstack loadbalancer healthmonitor create --delay 5 --max-retries 3 --timeout 3 --type HTTP --url-path / --wait my_pool

openstack loadbalancer member create --address vm_ip_address --protocol-port 80 --wait my_pool

Delete Load Balancers

When deleting a load balancer, first unassign the floating IP address used by the load balancer.

openstack loadbalancer delete --cascade --wait my_loadbalancer