Skip to main content

Load Balancing Strategies: From Theory to Practice with HAProxy

Date & Time
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:

Agenda
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
Session Hands-On
  • Slides "click here"
  • HAProxy Lab Setup Guide - Multi-OS Installation
Lead Instructor