In a third-party load balancer deployment, the cluster does not directly respond to or manage the VIP.
In a Non-Layer 2 Adjacent deployment, the cluster does not directly respond to or manage the VIP. In this configuration, a third-party load balancer such as the application delivery controller (ADC) is necessary. The ADC will respond to the VIP address and direct those connections to the primary server in the cluster. The cluster provides an indicator that allows the ADC to determine which particular node in the cluster is the primary.
During a failover event, as shown in the diagram below, the standby node with the highest priority assumes the primary role. The indicator for that node will reflect the new status, allowing the ADC to begin to direct connections to it. In this example, the VIP remains with the ADC while the cluster nodes change standby and primary roles.
