Is there a way to configure PA 5220 as L3/4 or L7 load-balancer?

[ibrahim.nezar]

Hi,

We have two PA 5220 and we are wondering if there is a method to utilize them as load-balancers in addition to their main use as firewalls? Is it doable? If yes, do you recommend such use case for production environment? 

The goal is to load balance between two services using TCP or Diameter protocol. 

Appreciate your answer and advice

Thanks

Ibrahim 

[OtakarKlier · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Not really load balancing, but you can research equal cost multi path (ECMP). But not the solution you might be looking for since it doesnt really monitor the down stream server/service. I would suggest getting a load balancer.

Regards,

[BPry · Accepted solution]

@ibrahim.nezar,

As @OtakarKlier mentioned there's some hacky ways to get this to somewhat function; paired with an external script with API access to make changes to the firewall and you can get a "functional" load balancer solution when it's absolutely necessary with, essentially, just the firewall.

I really wouldn't call any of those workarounds a solution though. As soon as you start talking about deploying a protected node to run an external script and interfacing with the firewall via the API, you could use the same node to act as a basic load balancer with something like NGINX for free. In any sort of production environment, I'd recommend just deploying an actual load-balancer. 

[ibrahim.nezar]

Thank you dears  @BPry @OtakarKlier for your responses