Chapter 1. Introduction to the Load-balancing service The Load-balancing service (octavia) provides a Load Balancing-as-a-Service (LBaaS) API version 2 implementation for Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) deployments. The Load-balancing service manages multiple virtual machines, containers, or bare metal servers- collectively known as amphorae- which it launches on demand. The ability to provide on-demand, horizontal scaling makes the Load-balancing service a fully-featured load balancer that is appropriate for large RHOSP enterprise deployments. Note Red Hat does not support a migration path from Neutron-LBaaS to the Load-balancing service. You can use some unsupported open source tools. For example, search nlbaas2octavia-lb-replicator on GitHub. Section 1.1, "Load-balancing service components" Section 1.2, "Load-balancing service object model" Section 1.3, "Uses of load balancing in Red Hat OpenStack Platform" 1.1. Load-balancing service components The Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) Load-balancing service (octavia) uses a set of VM instances referred to as amphorae that reside on the Compute nodes. The Load-balancing service controllers communicate with the amphorae over a load-balancing management network ( lb-mgmt-net ). When using octavia, you can create load-balancer virtual IPs (VIPs) that do not require floating IPs (FIPs). Not using FIPs has the advantage of improving performance through the load balancer. Figure 1.1. Load-balancing service components Figure 1.1 shows the components of the Load-balancing service are hosted on the same nodes as the Networking API server, which by default, is on the Controller nodes. The Load-balancing service consists of the following components: Octavia API ( octavia_api container) Provides the REST API for users to interact with octavia. Controller Worker ( octavia_worker container) Sends configuration and configuration updates to amphorae over the load-balancing management network. Health Manager ( octavia_health_manager container) Monitors the health of individual amphorae and handles failover events if an amphora encounters a failure. Housekeeping Manager ( octavia_housekeeping container) Cleans up deleted database records, and manages amphora certificate rotation. Driver agent ( octavia_driver_agent container) Supports other provider drivers, such as OVN. Amphora Performs the load balancing. Amphorae are typically instances that run on Compute nodes that you configure with load balancing parameters according to the listener, pool, health monitor, L7 policies, and members' configuration. Amphorae send a periodic heartbeat to the Health Manager. 1.2. Load-balancing service object model The Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) Load-balancing service (octavia) uses a typical load-balancing object model. Figure 1.2. Load-balancing service object model diagram Load balancer The top API object that represents the load-balancing entity. The VIP address is allocated when you create the load balancer. When you use the amphora provider to create the load balancer one or more amphora instances launch on one or more Compute nodes. Listener The port on which the load balancer listens, for example, TCP port 80 for HTTP. Health Monitor A process that performs periodic health checks on each back-end member server to pre-emptively detect failed servers and temporarily remove them from the pool. Pool A group of members that handle client requests from the load balancer. You can associate pools with more than one listener by using the API. You can share pools with L7 policies. Member Describes how to connect to the back-end instances or services. This description consists of the IP address and network port on which the back end member is available. L7 Rule Defines the layer 7 (L7) conditions that determine whether an L7 policy applies to the connection. L7 Policy A collection of L7 rules associated with a listener, and which might also have an association to a back-end pool. Policies describe actions that the load balancer takes if all of the rules in the policy are true. Additional resources Section 1.1, "Load-balancing service components" 1.3. Uses of load balancing in Red Hat OpenStack Platform Load balancing is essential for enabling simple or automatic delivery scaling and availability for cloud deployments. The Load-balancing service (octavia) depends on other Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) services: Compute service (nova) - For managing the Load-balancing service VM instance (amphora) lifecycle, and creating compute resources on demand. Networking service (neutron) - For network connectivity between amphorae, tenant environments, and external networks. Key Manager service (barbican) - For managing TLS certificates and credentials, when TLS session termination is configured on a listener. Identity service (keystone) - For authentication requests to the octavia API, and for the Load-balancing service to authenticate with other RHOSP services. Image service (glance) - For storing the amphora virtual machine image. Common Libraries (oslo) - For communication between Load-balancing service controller components, making Load-balancing service work within the standard OpenStack framework and review system, and project code structure. Taskflow - Is part of Common Libraries; the Load-balancing service uses this job flow system when it orchestrates back-end service configuration and management. The Load-balancing service interacts with the other RHOSP services through a driver interface. The driver interface avoids major restructuring of the Load-balancing service if an external component requires replacement with a functionally-equivalent service.

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