Load Balancing Strategies: From Theory to Practice with HAProxy

HAProxy Workshop: Load Balancing and Advanced Configuration

Date & Time

• **Date**: September 5, 2024
• **Time**: 13:00

Intended Audience

This workshop is specifically designed for **Senior Systems Engineers** who are looking to deepen their understanding of load balancing and HAProxy configuration.

Description

This workshop is a comprehensive 2-hour session that includes both theoretical concepts and practical hands-on labs, with a short break. The session covers the following topics:

Introduction (5 minutes)

• Brief overview of load balancing concepts
• Importance of load balancing in modern infrastructure

Load Balancing Fundamentals (15 minutes)

• Types of load balancers:

 * Layer 4 (L4) vs. Layer 7 (L7)

• Common load balancing algorithms:

 * Round Robin
 * Least Connections
 * IP Hash

• Health checks and failure handling

Introduction to HAProxy (10 minutes)

• Overview of HAProxy and its key features
• Architecture and components of HAProxy

HAProxy Configuration Basics (20 minutes)

• Structure of the HAProxy configuration file
• Key sections:

 * Frontend
 * Backend

• Access Control Lists (ACLs) and `use_backend` rules

Advanced HAProxy Features (20 minutes)

• SSL termination
• Sticky sessions
• HTTP rewriting and redirection
• Logging and monitoring

Live Demo: Setting up HAProxy (30 minutes)

• Installing HAProxy
• Configuring a basic load balancer
• Testing and verifying the setup
• Demonstration of advanced features

Best Practices and Performance Tuning (10 minutes)

• Optimization of HAProxy configuration
• Security considerations
• Scaling HAProxy

Lead Instructor

• **Manhal M. Mokhtar**