Application Delivery Management

NetScaler Console HA pair on Azure Cloud

March 28, 2025

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In Azure, high availability for NetScaler Console is achieved using an Azure Load Balancer (ALB). ALB monitors instances by sending health probes to both the primary and secondary nodes. The primary instance responds with 200 OK, while the secondary instance does not respond. Based on these responses, ALB sends traffic exclusively to the primary instance. In the event of a failover, the new primary begins responding with 200 OK, and ALB automatically sends traffic to it.

HA pair architecture

Prerequisites

Ensure that:

You have access to Azure Cloud and Resource Group.

Note:

We recommend that you create a resource group, network security group, virtual network, and other required entities before you provision NetScaler Console.
You create two standalone NetScaler Console instances on Azure Cloud.
The required ports are open for communication. For more information, see System Requirements.

Configure NetScaler Console HA pair

After you configure two standalone NetScaler Console instances:

Login to one of the NetScaler Console GUI.
Navigate to Settings > High Availability Settings.
Note:
- For configuring an HA pair, you must provide the private IP address of the other NetScaler Console.
- Floating IP can be any available IP from the Azure VNet (Virtual Network).
Click Configure NetScaler Console High Availability (HA), and provide the secondary node details, floating IP address, and click Configure.
In the confirmation window, click Yes. NetScaler Console instances reboot to form a HA pair.
After the HA pair configuration is complete, login to the primary NetScaler Console and navigate to Settings > HA Deployment to validate the primary and secondary nodes.

The next step is to configure the floating IP address as the frontend IP of Azure load balancer in Azure Cloud. In Azure Cloud portal, search for load balancer, and select Load Balancers in the results, and click Create:

In Basics, create an Azure Load Balancer (ALB) in the same Resource Group and Region where the Console VMs are configured.
1. Select SKU: Standard, Type: Internal, and Tier: Regional under Instance details.
In Frontend IP Configuration, add a frontend IP with the floating IP configured for the Console HA pair.
In Backend pools, add the IP address of the two Console instances.

Load balancing rules: Configure the following rules with Protocol, Port, Backend Port, Health Probe, and floating IP enabled:

Rule name	Protocol	Port	Backend port	Floating IP
Rule-80	TCP	80	80	Yes
Rule-443	TCP	443	443	Yes
Rule-5454	TCP	5454	5454	Yes
Rule-22	TCP	22	22	Yes
Rule-8443	TCP	8443	8443	Yes
Rule-7443	TCP	7443	7443	Yes
Rule-27000	TCP	27000	27000	Yes
Rule-7279	TCP	7279	7279	Yes
Rule-5563	TCP	5563	5563	Yes
Rule-4739	UDP	4739	4739	Yes
Rule-5140	UDP	5140	5140	Yes
Rule-162	UDP	162	162	Yes
Rule-514	UDP	514	514	Yes
Rule-5557	UDP	5557	5557	Yes
Rule-5558	UDP	5558	5558	Yes

Health Probe: Create an HTTP health check with all the required ports listed in Step 4. This health probe enables the primary Console as Active and secondary Console as Passive. For example:
1. Port: 443
2. URL: /mas_health
3. Expected Response Code: 200
  
  For more information to create a load balancer, see Create load balancer in Azure documentation.
  
  After you configure the load balancer, you can use the frontend IP address of ALB to access NetScaler Console.
  
  Note:
  
  Ensure that you have an Azure Virtual Desktop running in the same Azure network to access NetScaler Console through frontend IP address.

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NetScaler Console HA pair on Azure Cloud

March 28, 2025

Contributed by:

NetScaler Console HA pair on Azure Cloud

Prerequisites

Configure NetScaler Console HA pair

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