Classic Connection Load Balancing

The classic connection load balancing feature applies a single policy for all client connections to your database. Both your database and the client must enable the load balancing option in order for connections to be load balanced. When both client and server enable load balancing, the following process takes place when the client attempts to open a connection to Vertica:

  1. The client connects to a host in the database cluster, with a connection parameter indicating that it is requesting a load-balanced connection.

  2. The host chooses a host from the list of currently up hosts in the cluster, according to the current load balancing scheme. Under all schemes, it is possible for a host to select itself.

  3. The host tells the client which host it selected to handle the client's connection.
  4. If the host chose another host in the database to handle the client connection, the client disconnects from the initial host. Otherwise, the client jumps to step 6.
  5. The client establishes a connection to the host that will handle its connection. The client sets this second connection request so that the second host does not interpret the connection as a request for load balancing.
  6. The client connection proceeds as usual, (negotiating encryption if the connection has SSL enabled, and proceeding to authenticating the user ).

This process is transparent to the client application. The client driver automatically disconnects from the initial host and reconnects to the host selected for load balancing.

Requirements

  • In mixed IPv4 and IPv6 environments, balancing only works for the address family for which you have configured native load balancing. For example, if you have configured load balancing using an IPv4 address, then IPv6 clients cannot use load balancing, however the IPv6 clients can still connect, but load balancing does not occur.

  • The native load balancer returns an IP address for the client to use. This address must be one that the client can reach. If your nodes are on a private network, native load-balancing requires you to publish a public address in one of two ways:

    • Set the public address on each node. Vertica saves that address in the export_address field in the NODES system table.
    • Set the subnet on the database. Vertica saves that address in the export_subnet field in the DATABASES system table.

Load Balancing Schemes

The load balancing scheme controls how a host selects which host to handle a client connection. There are three available schemes:

  • NONE (default): Disables native connection load balancing.
  • ROUNDROBIN: Chooses the next host from a circular list of hosts in the cluster that are up—for example, in a three-node cluster, iterates over node1, node2, and node3, then wraps back to node1. Each host in the cluster maintains its own pointer to the next host in the circular list, rather than there being a single cluster-wide state.
  • RANDOM: Randomly chooses a host from among all hosts in the cluster that are up.

You set the native connection load balancing scheme using the SET_LOAD_BALANCE_POLICY function. See Enabling and Disabling Native Connection Load Balancing for instructions.

Driver Notes

  • Native connection load balancing works with the ADO.NET driver's connection pooling. The connection the client makes to the initial host, and the final connection to the load-balanced host, use pooled connections if they are available.
  • If a client application uses the JDBC and ODBC driver with third-party connection pooling solutions, the initial connection is not pooled because it is not a full client connection. The final connection is pooled because it is a standard client connection.

Connection Failover

The client libraries include a failover feature that allow them to connect to backup hosts if the host specified in the connection properties is unreachable. When using native connection load balancing, this failover feature is only used for the initial connection to the database. If the host to which the client was redirected does not respond to the client's connection request, the client does not attempt to connect to a backup host and instead returns a connection error to the user.

Clients are redirected only to hosts that are known to be up. Thus, this sort of connection failure should only occur if the targeted host goes down at the same moment the client is redirected to it. For more information, see ADO.NET Connection Failover, JDBC Connection Failover, and ODBC Connection Failover in Connecting to Vertica.