Load balancing layer

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Verify Identity Access supports load balancing at layer 4 or layer 7 of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) network model.

For each service, you can configure either of the following load balancing layers:

TCP Layer (Layer 4)
At this layer, the load balancer can use the TCP header information to determine how to process the request.
Application Layer (Layer 7)
At this layer, the load balancer can recognize application requests (for example, HTTP requests) and process these requests accordingly.
Note: The appliance load balancer does not support HTTP/2 at Layer 7.
Layer 7 offers the following extra features when compared to layer 4 load balancing:
  • Ability to use an HTTP cookie to provide stickiness. For more information, see Persistence.
  • Ability to use and manipulate the headers in HTTP requests and responses. For more information, see Benefits of layer 7 load balancing.
If you do not require these features, use layer 4 load balancing. Layer 4 load balancing is the most efficient type of load balancing. Layer 7 load balancers incur extra processing costs as they need to complete the following extra tasks:
  • SSL termination.
  • HTTP packet inspection.
  • HTTP header manipulation (as required).

For more information about configuring the load balancing layer, see Configuring front-end load balancer.