topic Re: Query on PA acting as load balancer in General Topics

Query on PA acting as load balancer

FarzanaMustafa — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 04:42:07 GMT

We are using VM-100 and would like to use this as a load balancer for our Web services.

We have checked the link below and would like to know if this EMCP load balance incoming traffic to Web servers? Or does this just load balance egress traffic between 2 different ISP’s?

https://knowledgebase.paloaltonetworks.com/KCSArticleDetail?id=kA10g000000ClF8CAK

Re: Query on PA acting as load balancer

BPry — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 16:32:19 GMT

@FarzanaMustafa,

The article that you have listed is specifically talking about load balancing 2 different ISPs. Your VM-100s are capable of performing route based ECMP.

Here's the thing with load-balancing directly on the Palo-Alto's for something like web services; can you get this to work, absolutely, should you, no. Setup an actual load-balancer like haproxy or some other solution behind your firewall and use the right tool for the job. Hacking together a solution that allows the VM-100 to function like a load-balancer makes for a very sad looking configuration and adds unnecessary complexity where it doesn't need to exist.

Re: Query on PA acting as load balancer

Vikashh — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 12:52:09 GMT

@BPry

Still if we think to configure for WebService (I mean the way @FarzanaMustafa asked), is it possible, will it work?

Re: Query on PA acting as load balancer

OtakarKlier — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 21:21:47 GMT

Hello,

Honestly you are better off using a load balancer.

Regards,

Re: Query on PA acting as load balancer

BPry — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 21:25:17 GMT

@Vikashh,

I'm not going to detail how you can make this function, because you shouldn't use your firewall as a load-balancer. There are many open-source solutions you could throw on any available piece of hardware that would work far better and actually be supported.