Introduction to application load balancers
Abiquo supports AWS Application load balancers. Application load balancers send traffic to target groups, of IP addresses or VMs. Abiquo also continues to support Classic load balancers.
For a full description of Application load balancers, see the Amazon documentation at: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/application/introduction.html.
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 Manage application load balancers .
For information about load balancers in each provider, and documentation of traditional load balancers, see Manage load balancers.
For more details of load balancers in GCP, see Abiquo and Google Cloud Platform load balancers.
For more details of load balancers in OCI, see Abiquo and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure load balancers.
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.
General information for a Target group table for Amazon
Field | Value |
|---|---|
Name | The name of the target group. Amazon will only accept the following characters: |
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 |
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
Field | Value |
|---|---|
Name | The Name of the target group. Google Cloud Platform will only accept the following characters: |
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. |
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 |
|---|---|
Name | The Name of the target group. GCP will only accept the following characters: |
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 |
Algorithm | Select the algorithm for traffic distribution. The default is |
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 |
|---|---|
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 ("/"). |
Status code |
|
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.