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HAProxy 2.4

haproxy.com

21–30 of 70 posts

Re: HAProxy 2.4

#21
post #2

If I have a cloud provider, why might I use HAProxy over the provider's load balancing solution?

To add to what other comments have already mentioned - cloud lbs send you random resets. If you don’t want to have your tcp sessions fail randomly under normal operation you have to use your own load balancer

Re: HAProxy 2.4

#22
post #2

If I have a cloud provider, why might I use HAProxy over the provider's load balancing solution?

We actually use both. We have the cloud provider's load balancers balancing to HAProxy load balancers. We use HAProxy, because it is much more flexible and powerful the the cloud provider's LB, and we use the cloud provider LB because it integrates because it is simpler to terminate public TLS with them and manage the certificates.

Re: HAProxy 2.4

#23

Author of the blog post here, happy to answer any questions about this release.

Not specific to this release, but for an system architect that is taking the first look ever to the product:

- the site does not do a good job of describing the products and what they do. https://www.haproxy.com/products/haproxy-enterprise-edition/ has a download button as the start and tells nothing about the product.

- it is hard to find requirements from the first page. (https://www.haproxy.com/documentation/hapee/2-2r1/getting-st...)

- is there any a page with basic architecture of the product? Some diagrams with typical configurations.

- is there a simpler HA setup than the 3 layer one here: https://www.haproxy.com/documentation/hapee/2-2r1/high-avail... ? What is the simplest HA configuration for 2 web servers?

Re: HAProxy 2.4

#24

Author of the blog post here, happy to answer any questions about this release.

Not specific to this release, but for an system architect that is taking the first look ever to the product: - the site does not do a good job of describing the products and what they do. https://www.haproxy.com/products/haproxy-enterprise-edition/ has a download button as the start and tells nothing about the product. - it is hard to find requirements from the first page. ( https://www.haproxy.com/documentation/hape…

Thanks for the feedback. I've provided a few replies below but I think you have made some great points and I will share them internally.

> - the site does not do a good job of describing the products and what they do.

The page does lead off by telling you it is a software load balancer, but I agree, we can do a better job of giving more information on the product itself. Most people who pursue HAProxy Enterprise are already familiar with HAProxy. With that said, we're actually working on a complete overhaul to this page and I believe the new version will address this.

> - it is hard to find requirements from the first page.

This is just a reference point and typically organizations are working closely with a sales engineer.

> - is there a simpler HA setup than the 3 layer one here:

A simpler version is found under active/standby here [1]

[1] https://www.haproxy.com/documentation/hapee/2-2r1/high-avail...

Re: HAProxy 2.4

#26

I've been long interested in HAProxy, but I can't seem to sell myself on it. When might I choose HAProxy that OpenResty[1] would not be sufficient or better? [1]: https://openresty.org/en/

IMO you would use OpenResty as a web server and HAProxy as a load balancer in front of it. HAProxy focuses on being a high-performance load balancer. OpenResty is built ontop of NGINX and many of the load balancing features in NGINX are locked behind their "Plus" product, all of which are provided by default within HAProxy. In order to take advantage of these features in OpenResty (such as active health checking and DNS service discovery) you would need to use Lua scripts where in HAProxy they are implemented in the core.

Re: HAProxy 2.4

#27
post #2

If I have a cloud provider, why might I use HAProxy over the provider's load balancing solution?

disclaimer: I work at HAProxy Technologies More control/flexibility (i.e. cloud provider usually gives you a limited number of "checkboxes" that they want you to be able to modify), generally better observability (HAProxy timing metrics [1] and session state at disconnection codes [2] are very helpful for debugging), and granular control over timeouts [3]. You also get builtin rate limiting [4], which from what I hav…

I last used HAProxy about a decade ago for fairly simple load balancing and caching - worked really well.

Question about the suitability for a dynamic backend case. I have a system where clients are assigned to backends exclusively for the duration of a session. At the moment I have a pool of backends and each client is explicitly told which backend to use so they can route to it. Ideally I’d make this transparent so it was easier to reassign on the fly. Is this case reasonably supported with HAProxy and which features should I be looking at to get a sense of it?

I’m working under the assumption that I’ll need to build the machinery to maintain the pool and registry of where clients should be routed to.

Re: HAProxy 2.4

#28
post #2

If I have a cloud provider, why might I use HAProxy over the provider's load balancing solution?

Cost. I imagine.

To expand on this I believe an aws load balancer is $30 / mo.

For early stage projects, and particularly for personal projects it's more cost efficient to use haproxy.

As an added bonus it's got all the bells and whistles to match demands as you scale, and no (cloud) vendor lock-in

Re: HAProxy 2.4

#29
HAProxy is great software, mostly because Willy can focus.

But I feel sorry for him now, with HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 the pain will never stop. And IPv6 makes most of this obsolete if it happens!

I stick with HTTP/1.1 since I'm building a native 3D MMO; only Microsoft can block port 80 which I doubt they will atleast in the coming 5 years!

Linux wont, they are not that stupid.

Edit: allready the bots have downvoted, this is beautiful.

Re: HAProxy 2.4

#30

I've been long interested in HAProxy, but I can't seem to sell myself on it. When might I choose HAProxy that OpenResty[1] would not be sufficient or better? [1]: https://openresty.org/en/

HAProxy as a load balancer / load shedder / traffic shaper is what I've seen it used for.
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