vmware load balancing

bbigford

I was working with NetScaler within Citrix (configured as a separate VM), and was thinking about VMware. It has been since a 5.5 upgrade to 6 that I have worked with Horizon View. I know it used to be that if you wanted a load balancer, you needed something like F5, NetScaler, etc, as a third party solution. Since VMware didn't have anything native, like Citrix.

Is that still the case? I know a separate appliance is the preferred method, and DNS round robin can be configured but not preferred. Unsure of what is native now and web searching isn't revealing much of anything.

scottalanmiller

@John-Nicholson

StorageNinja

@BBigford

Couple things...

I've load balanced Horizon View with a Netscaler (It works). Even the free version works.
Netscaler isn't a "native" per say as something that Citrix Acquired and likes to bundle sell. What was native was running CSG's with RR DNS (Note you can use RR DNS for View Security and connection servers also, never been the biggest fan but it has always worked.
VMware has NSX that can do basic L4 LB's for View and is integrated from a management and hypervisor standpoint for some of it's services. Note most people going down the NSX path will do it for advanced stuff like micro segmentation and network introspection offload (I've seen it also used for Citrix for these reasons).
F5 has a nice "license per user option" for Horizon View and they can completely replace the edge security server function if you go down this path..
KEMP's are stupid cheap to use for LB services when you just need basic stuff. I think that most of the Netscalers functionality (layer 7 stuff, host specific balancing) is mitigated by Horizon including DRS and moving VM's no the back end to balance load (which mostly happens AFTER initial connection anyways). The reason why Citrix historically needed this stuff is you proxied connections to bare metal and you couldn't reshuffle heavy users after connection.

I've always felt GSLB's are "dumb" and would rather just pay a 3rd party DNS provider to manage failover for me. Very few people need their functionality.

Example NSX with View Config.
https://elgwhoppo.com/2015/09/25/load-balancing-horizon-view-with-nsx/

The key to understanding View is understanding what all talks to what

http://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/vmware-horizon-7-end-user-computing-network-ports-diagram.pdf

coliver

We use HAProxy as our load balancer for Horizon View. Works amazingly well and is very light weight.