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Neutron/LBaaS/NetScaler

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Revision as of 20:45, 16 October 2013 by Youcef Laribi (talk | contribs) (NetScaler LBaaS integration in Neutron LBaaS)

NetScaler LBaaS integration in Neutron LBaaS

The NetScaler loadbalancer integration in Neutron LBaaS implements all the LBaaS driver CRUD APIs. It implements all the defined operations on VIPs, Pools and Pool Members and Health Monitors. The integration consists of two pieces:

  • A driver class configured in the Neutron config file (neutron.conf)
  • An LBaaS agent that runs on the network node

The integration support is targeted for the OpenStack IceHouse release.

Integration Design

The NetScaler LBaaS integration follows the same model as the HAProxy integration in Neutron. It consists of a driver class that implements the Neutron LBaaS driver calls. There is also a NetScaler LBaaS agent (similar to the HAProxy agent) which runs on the Network node. This agent receives rpc messages from the NetScaler LBaaS driver and is charged with realizing the LBaaS operations on the NetScaler devices, using NetScaler Control Center service REST APIs.

The figure below outlines the NetScaler integration components in the Neutron framework.

The NetScaler LBaaS driver forwards the driver calls to the NetScaler agent using OpenStack RPC cast calls (similar to HAProxy agent rpc calls). The agent will then invoke the REST APIs of the NetScaler Control Center Service to implement the operations on vips/pools/members/monitors. The Agent can call back the NetScaler LBaaS driver to update the status of the entities using direct rpc synchronous calls. Products Supported

The NetScaler LBaaS driver for Neutron targets the following Citrix products:

  • NetScaler hardware appliances (MPX series)
  • NetScaler Virtual appliances (VPX series) – Supported on KVM, Xen, VMware ESX and Microsoft HyperV
  • NetScaler multi-tenant hardware appliances (SDX series)
  • NetScaler Control Center

Product Versions supported

The following versions are supported by this integration:

  • NetScaler MPX 10.1
  • NetScaler VPX 10.1
  • NetScaler SDX 10.1
  • NetScaler Control Center 1.0 (to be release in Q4 2013)

Virtual Networking support

For the MPX and SDX hardware appliances, we intend to support all the Neutron L2/L3 plugins that support VLAN-backed virtual networks in Neutron. The LBaaS driver and agent will configure the hardware appliances with the vlans corresponding to vip and pool networks.

For the VPX virtual appliances, we are agnostic to the type of virtual networking used: The NetScaler VPX is running as a normal VM in Nova and can be launched and networked into the pool and vip networks like any VM in Nova, by leveraging the L2/L3 plugin/agent configured in Neutron and Nova setup.