vSphere with Tanzu Networking and HA Proxy Load Balancer Limitations for UDP traffic

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vSphere with Tanzu

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
UDP load-balancing is not supported when using HA Proxy topology for vSphere with Tanzu.

Environment

VMware vSphere 7.0 with Tanzu

Cause

HA Proxy does not support UDP load-balancing and only supports UDP traffic for Syslog this is noted in the upstream HA Proxy documentation and issues:

https://cbonte.github.io/haproxy-dconv/2.0/intro.html#3.1

https://github.com/haproxy/haproxy/issues/62

Resolution

If you require UDP load balancing traffic, then you can deploy a vSphere with Tanzu topology that supports UDP load-balancing like Avi/NSX Advanced Load balancer or NSX-T deployments. 

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/vmware-vsphere-with-tanzu/GUID-8908FAD7-9343-491B-9F6B-45FA8893C8CC.html

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:
HA Proxy is provided as one of three networking topology options customers can deploy the vSphere with Tanzu Product. As such the upstream HA Proxy documentation and limitations should be reviewed prior to a deployment to ensure that this topology offers the features required. The HA Proxy appliance is a free open-source solution developed by HA Proxy Technologies. While VMware will support Tanzu's api calls to HAproxy, any issues with the functionality or the product itself should be directed to HA Proxy support . Keep this in mind when deciding which load balancing solution to use when deploying vSphere with Tanzu. 

Note, there is no way to migrate an existing vSphere with Tanzu Deployment from one load balancing solution to another. If a deployment needs to be changed, then the vSphere cluster will need to be removed and recreated.