Overview

HAProxy Enterprise load balancer

Use the HAProxy Enterprise load balancer for TCP traffic at layer 4 or HTTP traffic at layer 7. This load balancer is a reverse proxy. It terminates the client's connection on one end, then opens a connection to the server on the other end.

Running as an HTTP load balancer, it allows you to make routing decisions based on HTTP metadata such as the URL path, HTTP headers, and cookies. To load balance HTTP, configure the load balancer in mode http.

Running as a TCP load balancer, it can load balance TCP traffic or other layer 7 protocols besides HTTP such as SMTP, POP, IMAP, and MySQL. To load balance TCP or layer 7 protocols, configure the load balancer in mode tcp.

HAProxy Enterprise supports a variety of configurable options, including:

• Load balancing schemes including round robin, least connection, source, destination, source/destination, URI, HTTP header values, and others.

• Server health checks by HTTP or TCP protocol.

• Traffic rate limiting and traffic policing.

• Rich conditional switching rules (ACLs) for traffic filtering and control.

• Rich SSL and security stack.

• Web Application Firewall (WAF).

• Rich observability support.

LVS load balancer

The LVS layer 4 load balancer routes TCP or UDP traffic to the backend servers.

Configured in NAT mode, LVS provides destination NAT. If source NAT is also desired, use the NAT tab to configure it.

LVS by itself either listens to all ports on an IP or a single specified port. If you need to listen on a range of ports, define a flow.

LVS supports a variety of configurable options such as:

• Load balancing schemes including round robin, least connection, source, destination, source/destination, and shortest expected delay.

• Server health checks by HTTP, TCP, ICMP, or ARP protocol.

Use cases