Create a target group

This section describes target groups, which provide a flexible way to manage load balancing nodes or targets.
Abiquo manages target groups in AWS, OCI, and GCP.
For documentation of AWS application load balancers, see https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652314449 .
For information about load balancers in each provider, and documentation of traditional load balancers, see https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652313917.
For more details of load balancers in GCP, see https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652291552.
For more details of load balancers in OCI, see https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652291451.

Provider	Notes

Provider	Notes
AWS	An Application load balancer sends traffic to a target group by default. You can create multiple target groups for each load balancer.
OCI	Each target group belongs exclusively to a single load balancer. You must create at least one target group per load balancer
GCP	You can create multiple target groups that can belong to multiple load balancers

Privileges: Manage load balancers, Assign load balancers

Before you begin:

Create targets, which may include subnets and IP addresses, or VMs

To create a target group:

Go to myCloud → Virtual datacenters → select a virtual datacenter in AWS → Network → Load balancing → Target groups
Click the + add button
Enter the target group details and assign targets as described below
Click Save

Target group general info

The General information of the target group configures the type, protocol, and algorithm.

Create a target group in AWS enter General information

General information for a Target group table for Amazon

Field	Value

Field	Value
Name	The name of the target group. Amazon will only accept the following characters: `A-Z`, `a-z`, `0-9` and `-`, and you cannot modify the name
Type	Select the target type of Private IP for a subnet address, or Virtual machine
Protocol	Load balancers will use the Protocol to route traffic to the target group (See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/application/load-balancer-target-groups.html#target-group-routing-configuration)
Port	Load balancers will use the Port to route traffic to the target group
Protocol version	For HTTP and HTTPS protocols only, select a compatible version of the protocol
Algorithm	For HTTP and HTTPS protocols only, for example, round robin or least_outstanding_requests

General information for a Target group for GCP

As there are many types of target groups in Google Cloud, this page provides examples of two examples of target group types: instance groups and network endpoint groups.

In the platform, you cannot create target groups of these types:

MANAGED_INSTANCE_GROUP
REGIONAL_MANAGED_INSTANCE_GROUP

But Abiquo onboards all target groups from GCP

Unmanaged instance group example

Create an unmanaged instance target group

Field	Value

Field	Value
Name	The Name of the target group. Google Cloud Platform will only accept the following characters: `a-z`, `0-9` and `-`, and you cannot modify the name
Type	For a typical load balancer with VMs attached, create an UNMANAGED_INSTANCE_GROUP. The other fields in this table are for an UNMANAGED_INSTANCE_GROUP
Named ports	Enter a port Name to identify each Port in the target group. Keep the names to enter them in load balancers
Global network	The network that the VMs in the unmanaged instance group will use
Subnet	A subnet of the global network that the VMs in the group will belong to
Location	The public cloud region that the VMs will belong to in the global network
Availability zone	The availability zone to use in the global network

GCE IP port target group example

Abiquo recommends GCE_IP_PORT target groups. This screenshot shows an INTERNET_IP_PORT target group. The INTERNET_IP_PORT target group is only available with classic load balancers.

Field	Value

Field	Value
Name	The Name of the target group. GCP will only accept the following characters: `a-z`, `0-9` and `-`, and you cannot modify the name
Type	GCE_IP_PORT represents a Network Endpoint Group in GCP. It will load balance GCE IP addresses at the given port
Port	The Port for communicating with the load balanced nodes

General information for a Target group

In OCI, when you create a target group, it must belong to a load balancer. Each load balancer must have at least one target group.

Abiquo target groups are OCI backend sets.

Name	The Name of the target group
Type	The `DEFAULT` type is for load balancers with nodes and the `NETWORKING` type is for network load balancers
Algorithm	Select the algorithm for traffic distribution. The default is `ROUND_ROBIN`

Target group health check

In AWS and OCI, you create a health check for each target group.
In GCP, you create a health check as part of the load balancer, and you can align it with the routing rules.

Screenshot: Create target group health check AWS

Screenshot: Create target group health check OCI. In OCI each target group must have its own health check.

Health check table for AWS and OCI

Field	Value

Field	Value
Name	Name of the health check
Common protocols	Select one of the most common protocols to load presets
Protocol	The protocol with which the health check will be performed
Port	The port to which the health check will be performed
Path	The server path to check. In AWS, it must start with a slash ("/"). See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/application/target-group-health-checks.html#health-check-settings
Status code	OCI only: a request to the path of a healthy node will return this status code
Response body	OCI only: Optional; a request to the path of a healthy node will return this response body
Interval (sec)	The interval in seconds between health checks
Timeout (sec)	The timeout in seconds after which an attempted health check will be considered unsuccessful
Attempts	The number of attempts before the health check will be considered unsuccessful

Target group targets

In AWS, when you create the target group you can add targets.

In OCI and GCP, to add targets, edit the target group

Enter an IP address and port, or select a VM, and click Add. When you have finished adding all of the targets, to create the target group, click Save.