SIP Load Balancer User Guide

The Guide to the

Mobicents SIP
Load Balancer
by Douglas Silas, Jean Deruelle, Vladimir Ralev, Ivelin Ivanov, and Jared Morgan

Preface ............................................................................................................................. v
1. Document Conventions .......................................................................................... v
1.1. Typographic Conventions ............................................................................ v
1.2. Pull-quote Conventions .............................................................................. vii
1.3. Notes and Warnings .................................................................................. vii
1. Load Balancer ............................................................................................................. 1
1.1. SIP Load Balancer: Installing, Configuring and Running ........................................ 2
1.1.1. Pre-Install Requirements and Prerequisites ................................................ 2
1.1.2. Downloading ............................................................................................ 2
1.1.3. Installing .................................................................................................. 2
1.1.4. Configuring .............................................................................................. 2
1.1.5. Running ................................................................................................... 9
1.1.6. Testing .................................................................................................. 10
1.1.7. Stopping ................................................................................................ 11
1.1.8. Uninstalling ............................................................................................ 11
1.2. SIP Load Balancing Basics ............................................................................... 11
1.3. HTTP Load Balancing Basics ............................................................................ 12
1.4. Pluggable balancer algorithms ...........................................................................
1.5. Distributed load balancing .................................................................................
1.6. Implementation of the Mobicents Load Balancer .................................................
1.7. SIP Message Flow ............................................................................................
A. Revision History ..........................................................................................................

12
13
14
15
17

iii

iv

Preface

1. Document Conventions
This manual uses several conventions to highlight certain words and phrases and draw attention
to specific pieces of information.
In PDF and paper editions, this manual uses typefaces drawn from the Liberation Fonts [https://
fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/] set. The Liberation Fonts set is also used in HTML editions if
the set is installed on your system. If not, alternative but equivalent typefaces are displayed. Note:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and later includes the Liberation Fonts set by default.

1.1. Typographic Conventions

Four typographic conventions are used to call attention to specific words and phrases. These
conventions, and the circumstances they apply to, are as follows.
Mono-spaced Bold

Used to highlight system input, including shell commands, file names and paths. Also used to
highlight key caps and key-combinations. For example:
To see the contents of the file my_next_bestselling_novel in your current
working directory, enter the cat my_next_bestselling_novel command at the
shell prompt and press Enter to execute the command.
The above includes a file name, a shell command and a key cap, all presented in Mono-spaced
Bold and all distinguishable thanks to context.
Key-combinations can be distinguished from key caps by the hyphen connecting each part of a
key-combination. For example:
Press Enter to execute the command.
Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to the first virtual terminal. Press Ctrl+Alt+F7 to
return to your X-Windows session.
The first sentence highlights the particular key cap to press. The second highlights two sets of
three key caps, each set pressed simultaneously.
If source code is discussed, class names, methods, functions, variable names and returned values
mentioned within a paragraph will be presented as above, in Mono-spaced Bold. For example:
File-related classes include filesystem for file systems, file for files, and dir
for directories. Each class has its own associated set of permissions.
Proportional Bold
This denotes words or phrases encountered on a system, including application names; dialogue
box text; labelled buttons; check-box and radio button labels; menu titles and sub-menu titles.
For example:

Preface

Choose System > Preferences > Mouse from the main menu bar to launch
Mouse Preferences. In the Buttons tab, click the Left-handed mouse check
box and click Close to switch the primary mouse button from the left to the right
(making the mouse suitable for use in the left hand).
To insert a special character into a gedit file, choose Applications >
Accessories > Character Map from the main menu bar. Next, choose Search
> Find from the Character Map menu bar, type the name of the character in the
Search field and click Next. The character you sought will be highlighted in the
Character Table. Double-click this highlighted character to place it in the Text
to copy field and then click the Copy button. Now switch back to your document
and choose Edit > Paste from the gedit menu bar.
The above text includes application names; system-wide menu names and items; applicationspecific menu names; and buttons and text found within a GUI interface, all presented in
Proportional Bold and all distinguishable by context.
Note the > shorthand used to indicate traversal through a menu and its sub-menus. This is to
avoid the difficult-to-follow 'Select Mouse from the Preferences sub-menu in the System menu
of the main menu bar' approach.
Mono-spaced Bold Italic or Proportional Bold Italic

Whether Mono-spaced Bold or Proportional Bold, the addition of Italics indicates replaceable or
variable text. Italics denotes text you do not input literally or displayed text that changes depending
on circumstance. For example:
To connect to a remote machine using ssh, type ssh [email protected]
at a shell prompt. If the remote machine is example.com and your username on
that machine is john, type ssh [email protected].
The mount -o remount file-system command remounts the named file
system. For example, to remount the /home file system, the command is mount
-o remount /home.
To see the version of a currently installed package, use the rpm -q package
command. It will return a result as follows: package-version-release.
Note the words in bold italics above username, domain.name, file-system, package, version and
release. Each word is a placeholder, either for text you enter when issuing a command or for text
displayed by the system.
Aside from standard usage for presenting the title of a work, italics denotes the first use of a new
and important term. For example:
When the Apache HTTP Server accepts requests, it dispatches child processes
or threads to handle them. This group of child processes or threads is known as

vi

Pull-quote Conventions

a server-pool. Under Apache HTTP Server 2.0, the responsibility for creating and
maintaining these server-pools has been abstracted to a group of modules called
Multi-Processing Modules (MPMs). Unlike other modules, only one module from
the MPM group can be loaded by the Apache HTTP Server.

1.2. Pull-quote Conventions

Two, commonly multi-line, data types are set off visually from the surrounding text.
Output sent to a terminal is set in Mono-spaced Roman and presented thus:

books
books_tests

Desktop
Desktop1

documentation
downloads

drafts
images

mss
notes

photos
scripts

stuff
svgs

svn

Source-code listings are also set in Mono-spaced Roman but are presented and highlighted as
follows:

package org.jboss.book.jca.ex1;
import javax.naming.InitialContext;
public class ExClient
{
public static void main(String args[])
throws Exception
{
InitialContext iniCtx = new InitialContext();
Object
ref = iniCtx.lookup("EchoBean");
EchoHome
home = (EchoHome) ref;
Echo
echo = home.create();
System.out.println("Created Echo");
System.out.println("Echo.echo('Hello') = " + echo.echo("Hello"));
}
}

1.3. Notes and Warnings

Finally, we use three visual styles to draw attention to information that might otherwise be
overlooked.

vii

Preface

Note
A note is a tip or shortcut or alternative approach to the task at hand. Ignoring a
note should have no negative consequences, but you might miss out on a trick that
makes your life easier.

Important
Important boxes detail things that are easily missed: configuration changes that
only apply to the current session, or services that need restarting before an update
will apply. Ignoring Important boxes won't cause data loss but may cause irritation
and frustration.

Warning
A Warning should not be ignored. Ignoring warnings will most likely cause data
loss.

viii

Chapter 1.

Load Balancer

Figure 1.1. Star Cluster Topology.

The SIP Load Balancer is used to balance the load of SIP service requests and responses between
nodes in a SIP Server cluster, such as Mobicents JAIN SLEE or SIP Servlets. Both Mobicents
servers can be used in conjunction with the SIP Load Balancer to increase the performance and
availability of SIP services and applications.
In terms of functionality, the SIP Load Balancer is a simple stateless proxy server that intelligently
forwards SIP session requests and responses between User Agents (UAs) on a Wide Area
Network (WAN), and SIP Server nodes, which are almost always located on a Local Area Network
(LAN). All SIP requests and responses pass through the SIP Load Balancer.

Chapter 1. Load Balancer

1.1. SIP Load Balancer: Installing, Configuring and

Running
1.1.1. Pre-Install Requirements and Prerequisites
Software Prerequisites

A JAIN SIP HA-enabled application server such as Mobicents JAIN SLEE or Mobicents SIP
Servlets is required.
Running the SIP Load Balancer requires at least two instances of the application server as
cluster nodes nodes. Therefore, before configuring the SIP Load Balancer, we should make
sure we've installed a the SIP application server first. The Mobicents SIP load balancer will
work with a SIP Servlets-enabled JBoss Application Server or a JAIN SLEE application server
with SIP RA.
SIP Servlets containers based on Tomcat are also supported but the session replication is
not available there, thus mid-call failover will not work.

1.1.2. Downloading
The load balancer is located in the sip-balancer top-level directory of the Mobicents distribution.
You will find the following files in the directory:

SIP load balancer executable JAR file

This is the binary file with all dependencies
SIP load balancer Configuration Properties file
This is the properties files with various settings

1.1.3. Installing
The SIP load balancer executable JAR file can be extracted anywhere in the file system. It is
recommended that the file is placed in the directory containing other JAR executables, so it can
be easily located in the future.

1.1.4. Configuring
Configuring the SIP load balancer and the two SIP Servlets-enabled Server nodes is described
in Configuring the Mobicents SIP Load Balancer and SIP Server Nodes.

Configuring

Procedure 1.1. Configuring the Mobicents SIP Load Balancer and SIP Server
Nodes
1.

Configure lb.properties Configuration Properties File

Configure the SIP Load Balancer's Configuration Properties file by substituting valid values
for your personal setup. Example 1.1, Complete Sample lb.properties File shows a sample
lb.properties file, with key element descriptions provided after the example. The lines
beginning with the pound sign are comments.

Example 1.1. Complete Sample lb.properties File

# Mobicents Load Balancer Settings

# For an overview of the Mobicents Load Balancer visit http://docs.google.com/present/view?
id=dc5jp5vx_89cxdvtxcm
# The Load balancer will listen for both TCP and UDP connections

# The binding address of the load balancer. This also specifies the
# default value for both internalHost and externalHost if not specified separately.
host=127.0.0.1
# The binding address of the load balancer where clients should connect (if the host property
is not specified)
#externalHost=127.0.0.1
# The SIP port from where servers will receive messages
# delete if you want to use only one port for both inbound and outbound)
internalPort=5065
# The SIP port used where clients should connect
externalPort=5060
# The binding address of the load balancer where SIP application servers should connect (if
the host property is not specified)
#internalHost=127.0.0.1
# The RMI port used for heartbeat signals
rmiRegistryPort=2000
# The HTTP port for HTTP forwarding
# if you like to activate the integrated HTTP load balancer, this is the entry point

Chapter 1. Load Balancer

httpPort=2080
#If no nodes are active the LB can redirect the traffic to the unavailableHost specified in this
property,
#otherwise, it will return 503 Service Unavailable
#unavailableHost=google.com
# If you are using IP load balancer, put the IP address and port here
#externalIpLoadBalancerAddress=127.0.0.1
#externalIpLoadBalancerPort=111
# Requests initited from the App Servers can route to this address (if you are using 2 IP load
balancers for bidirectional SIP LB)
#internalIpLoadBalancerAddress=127.0.0.1
#internalIpLoadBalancerPort=111
# The addresses in the SIP LB Via headers can be either the real addresses or those specified
in the external and internal IP LB addresses
useIpLoadBalancerAddressInViaHeaders=false
# Designate extra IP addresses as serer nodes
#extraServerNodes=222.221.21.12:21,45.6.6.7:9003,33.5.6.7,33.9.9.2
# Call-ID affinity algortihm settings. This algorithm is the default. No need to uncomment it.
#algorithmClass=org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.CallIDAffinityBalancerAlgorithm
# This property specifies how much time to keep an association before being evitcted.
# It is needed to avoid memory leaks on dead calls. The time is in seconds.
#callIdAffinityMaxTimeInCache=500
#The following attribute specified the policy after failover. If set to true all calls from the failed
node
#will go to a new healthy node (all calls to the same node). If set to false the calls will go to
random new nodes.
#callIdAffinityGroupFailover=false
# Uncomment to enable the consistent hash based on Call-ID algorithm.
#algorithmClass=org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.HeaderConsistentHashBalancerAlgorithm
# This property is not required, it defaults to Call-ID if not set, cna be "from.user" or "to.user"
when you want the SIP URI username
#sipHeaderAffinityKey=Call-ID
#specify the GET HTTP parameter to be used as hash key
#httpAffinityKey=appsession
# Uncomment to enable the persistent consistent hash based on Call-ID algorithm.
#algorithmClass=org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.PersistentConsistentHashBalancerAlgorithm
# This property is not required, it defaults to Call-ID if not set

Configuring

#sipHeaderAffinityKey=Call-ID
#specify the GET HTTP parameter to be used as hash key
#httpAffinityKey=appsession
#This is the JBoss Cache 3.1 configuration file (with jgroups), if not specified it will use default
#persistentConsistentHashCacheConfiguration=/home/config.xml
# Call-ID affinity algortihm settings. This algorithm is the default. No need to uncomment it.
#algorithmClass=org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.CallIDAffinityBalancerAlgorithm
# This property specifies how much time to keep an association before being evitcted.
# It is needed to avoid memory leaks on dead calls. The time is in seconds.
#callIdAffinityMaxTimeInCache=500
# Uncomment to enable the consistent hash based on Call-ID algorithm.
#algorithmClass=org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.HeaderConsistentHashBalancerAlgorithm
# This property is not required, it defaults to Call-ID if not set, cna be "from.user" or "to.user"
when you want the SIP URI username
#sipHeaderAffinityKey=Call-ID
#specify the GET HTTP parameter to be used as hash key
#httpAffinityKey=appsession
# Uncomment to enable the persistent consistent hash based on Call-ID algorithm.
#algorithmClass=org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.PersistentConsistentHashBalancerAlgorithm
# This property is not required, it defaults to Call-ID if not set
#sipHeaderAffinityKey=Call-ID
#specify the GET HTTP parameter to be used as hash key
#httpAffinityKey=appsession
#This is the JBoss Cache 3.1 configuration file (with jgroups), if not specified it will use default
#persistentConsistentHashCacheConfiguration=/home/config.xml

#If a node doesnt check in within that time (in ms), it is considered dead
nodeTimeout=5100
#The consistency of the above condition is checked every heartbeatInterval milliseconds
heartbeatInterval=150

#JSIP stack configuration.....

javax.sip.STACK_NAME = SipBalancerForwarder
javax.sip.AUTOMATIC_DIALOG_SUPPORT = off
# You need 16 for logging traces. 32 for debug + traces.
# Your code will limp at 32 but it is best for debugging.
gov.nist.javax.sip.TRACE_LEVEL = 0

Chapter 1. Load Balancer

// Specify if message contents should be logged.

gov.nist.javax.sip.LOG_MESSAGE_CONTENT=false
gov.nist.javax.sip.DEBUG_LOG = logs/sipbalancerforwarderdebug.txt
gov.nist.javax.sip.SERVER_LOG = logs/sipbalancerforwarder.xml
gov.nist.javax.sip.THREAD_POOL_SIZE = 64
gov.nist.javax.sip.REENTRANT_LISTENER = true

host
Local IP address, or interface, on which the SIP load balancer will listen for incoming
requests.
externalPort
Port on which the SIP load balancer listens for incoming requests from SIP User Agents.
internalPort
Port on which the SIP load balancer forwards incoming requests to available, and healthy,
SIP Server cluster nodes.
rmiRegistryPort
Port on which the SIP load balancer will establish the RMI heartbeat connection to the
application servers. When this connection fails or a disconnection instruction is received,
an application server node is removed and handling of requests continues without it by
redirecting the load to the lie nodes.
httpPort
Port on which the SIP load balancer will accept HTTP requests to be distributed across
the nodes.
internalTransport
Transport protocol for the internal SIP connections associated with the internal SIP port
of the load balancer. Possible choices are UDP, TCP and TLS.
externalTransport
Transport protocol for the external SIP connections associated with the external SIP port
of the load balancer. Possible choices are UDP, TCP and TLS. It must match the transport
of the internal port.
externalIpLoadBalancerAddress
Address of the IP load balancer (if any) used for incoming requests to be distributed in
the direction of the application server nodes. This address may be used by the SIP load

Configuring

balancer to be put in SIP headers where the external address of the SIP load balancer
is needed.
externalIpLoadBalancerPort
The port of the external IP load balancer. Any messages arriving at this port should be
distributed across the external SIP ports of a set of SIP load balancers.
internalIpLoadBalancerAddresst
Address of the IP load balancer (if any) used for outgoing requests (requests initiated
from the servers) to be distributed in the direction of the clients. This address may be
used by the SIP load balancer to be put in SIP headers where the internal address of
the SIP load balancer is needed.
internalIpLoadBalancerPort
The port of the internal IP load balancer. Any messages arriving at this port should be
distributed across the internal SIP ports of a set of SIP load balancers.
extraServerNodes
Comma-separated list of hosts that are server nodes. You can put here alternative
names of the application servers here and they will be recognized. Names are important,
because they might be used for direction-analysis. Requests coming from these server
will go in the direction of the clients and will not be routed back to the cluster.
algorithmClass
The fully-qualified Java class name of the balancing algorithm to be used. There are
three algorithms to choose from and you can write your own to implement more complex
routing behaviour. Refer to the sample configuration file for details about the available
options for each algorithm. Each algorithm can have algorithm-specific properties for finegrained configuration.
nodeTimeout
In milliseonds. Default value is 5100. If a server node doesnt check in within this time (in
ms), it is considered dead.
heartbeatInterval
In milliseconds. Default value is 150 milliseonds. The hearbeat interval must be much
smaller than the interval specified in the JAIN SIP property on the server machines org.mobicents.ha.javax.sip.HEARTBEAT_INTERVAL

Note
The remaining keys and properties in the configuration properties file
can be used to tune the JAIN SIP stack, but are not specifically
required for load balancing. To assist with tuning, a comprehensive list
of implementing classes for the SIP Stack is available from the Interface
SIP Stack page on nist.gov [http://snad.ncsl.nist.gov/proj/iptel/jain-sip-1.2/

Chapter 1. Load Balancer

javadoc/javax/sip/SipStack.html]. For a comprehensive list of properties

associated with the SIP Stack implementation, refer to Class SipStackImpl
page on nist.gov [http://snad.ncsl.nist.gov/proj/iptel/jain-sip-1.2/javadoc/gov/
nist/javax/sip/SipStackImpl.html].

2.

Configure logging
The SIP load balancer uses Java Logging [http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/
util/logging/overview.html] as a logging mechanism. You can configure it through a
property file and specify the property file to be used by using the following command
-Djava.util.logging.config.file=./lb-logging.properties. Please refer to JDK
logging for more informationon how to configure the Java logging.

1.1.4.1. Converged Load Balancing

1.1.4.1.1. Apache HTTP Load Balancer
The Mobicents SIP Load Balancer can work in concert with HTTP load balancers such as mod_jk.
Whenever an HTTP session is bound to a particular node, an instruction is sent to the SIP Load
Balancer to direct the SIP calls from the same application session to the same node.
It is sufficient to configure mod_jk to work for HTTP in JBoss in order to enable cooperative load
balancing. Mobicents will read the configuration and will use it without any extra configuration.
You can read more about configuring mod_jk with JBoss in your JBoss Application Server
documentation.

1.1.4.1.2. Integrated HTTP Load Balancer

To use the integrated HTTP Load Balancer, no extra configuration is needed. If a unique jvmRoute
is specified and enabled in each application server, it will behave exactly as the apache balancer.
If jvmRoute is not present, it will use the session ID as a hash value and attempt to create a sticky
session. The integrated balancer can be used together with the apache balancer at the same time.
In addition to the apache behavior, there is a consistent hash balancer algorithm that can be
enabled for both HTTP and SIP messages. For both HTTP and SIP messages, there is a
configurable affinity key, which is evaluated and hashed against each unassigned request. All
requests with the same hash value will always be routed to the same application server node. For
example, the SIP affinity key could be the callee user name and the HTTP affinity key could the
appsession HTTP GET parameter of the request. If the desired behaviour group these requests,
we can just make sure the affinity values (user name and GET parameter) are the same.

Running

Figure 1.2. Ensuring SIP and HTTP requests are being grouped by common
affinity value.

1.1.5. Running
Procedure 1.2. Running the SIP Load Balancer and SIP Server Nodes
1.

Start the SIP Load Balancer

Start the SIP load balancer, ensuring the Configuration Properties file (lb.properties in this
example) is specified. In the Linux terminal, or using the Windows Command Prompt, the SIP
Load Balancer is started by issuing a command similar to this one:
java -jar sip-balancer-jar-with-dependencies.jar lbconfiguration.properties

Executing the SIP load balancer produces output similar to the following example:
home]$ java -jar sip-balancer-jar-with-dependencies.jar lbconfiguration.properties
Oct 21, 2008 1:10:58 AM
org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.SIPBalancerForwarder start
INFO: Sip Balancer started on address 127.0.0.1, external port : 5060,
port : 5065

Chapter 1. Load Balancer

Oct 21, 2008 1:10:59 AM

org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.NodeRegisterImpl startServer
INFO: Node registry starting...
Oct 21, 2008 1:10:59 AM
org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.NodeRegisterImpl startServer
INFO: Node expiration task created
Oct 21, 2008 1:10:59 AM
org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.NodeRegisterImpl startServer
INFO: Node registry started

The output shows the IP address on which the SIP Load Balancer is listening, as well as the
external and internal listener ports.
2.

Configure SIP Server Nodes

The information about configuring your SIP Server, SIP Servlets or JAIN SLEE, is in the
respective server User Guide.

3.

Start Load Balancer Client Nodes

Start all SIP load balancer client nodes.

1.1.6. Testing
To test load balancing, the same application must be deployed manually on each node, and two
SIP Softphones must be installed.

Procedure 1.3. Testing Load Balancing with Sip Servlets

1.

Deploy an Application
Ensure that for each node, the DAR file location is specified in the server.xml file.
Deploy the Location service manually on both nodes.

2.

Start the "Sender" SIP softphone

Start a SIP softphone client with the SIP address of sip:sender@sip-servlets-com,
listening on port 5055. The outbound proxy must be specified as the sip-balancer
(http://127.0.0.1:5060)

3.

Start the "Receiver" SIP softphone

Start a SIP softphone client with the SIP address of sip:receiver-failover@sipservlets-com, listening on port 5090.

4.

Initiate two calls from "Sender" SIP softphone

Initiate one call from sip:sender@sip-servlets-com to sip:receiver-failover@sipservlets-com. Tear down the call once completed.

10

Stopping

Initiate a second call using the same SIP address, and tear down the call once completed.
Notice that the call is handled by the second node.

Procedure 1.4. Testing Load Balancing with JAIN SLEE and SIP RA
1.

Deploy SIP RA

2.

Configure the JAIN SIP HA properties for load balancing according to the JAIN SLEE User
Guide

3.

Deploy a sample application

4.

Run the sample scenario for the application using the SIP Load Balancer

1.1.7. Stopping
Assuming that you started the JBoss Application Server as a foreground process in the Linux
terminal, the easiest way to stop it is by pressing the Ctrl+C key combination in the same terminal
in which you started it.
This should produce similar output to the following:
^COct 21, 2008 1:11:57 AM
org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.SipBalancerShutdownHook run
INFO: Stopping the sip forwarder

1.1.8. Uninstalling
To uninstall the SIP load balancer, delete the JAR file you installed.

1.2. SIP Load Balancing Basics

All User Agents send SIP messages, such as INVITE and MESSAGE, to the same SIP URI (the IP
address and port number of the SIP Load Balancer on the WAN). The Load Balancer then parses,
alters, and forwards those messages to an available node in the cluster. If the message was sent
as a part of an existing SIP session, it will be forwarded to the cluster node which processed that
User Agent's original transaction request.
The SIP Server that receives the message acts upon it and sends a response back to the SIP
Load Balancer. The SIP Load Balancer reparses, alters and forwards the message back to the
original User Agent. This entire proxying and provisioning process is carried out independent of
the User Agent, which is only concerned with the SIP service or application it is using.
By using the Load Balancer, SIP traffic is balanced across a pool of available SIP Servers,
increasing the overall throughput of the SIP service or application running on either individual
nodes of the cluster. In the case of a Mobicents server with </distributed> capabilities, load
balancing advantages are applied across the entire cluster.

11

Chapter 1. Load Balancer

The SIP Load Balancer is also able to failover requests mid-call from unavailable nodes
to available ones, thus increasing the reliability of the SIP service or application. The Load
Balancer increases throughput and reliability by dynamically provisioning SIP service requests
and responses across responsive nodes in a cluster. This enables SIP applications to meet the
real-time demand for SIP services.

1.3. HTTP Load Balancing Basics

In addition to the SIP load balancing, there are several options for coordinated or cooperative load
balancing with other protocols such as HTTP.
Typically, a JBoss Application Server will use apache HTTP server with mod_jk, mod_proxy,
mod_cluster or similar extension installed as an HTTP load balancer. This apache-based load
balancer will parse incoming HTTP requests and will look for the session ID of those requests in
order to ensure all requests from the same session arrive at the same application server.
By default, this is done by examining the jsessionid HTTP cookie or GET parameter and
looking for the jvmRoute assigned to the session. The typical jsessionid value is of the form
<sessionId>.<jvmRoute>. The very first request for each new HTTP session does not have a

session ID assigned; the apache routes the request to a random application server node.
When the node responds it assigns a session ID and jvmRoute to the response of the request
in a HTTP cookie. This response goes back to the client through apache, which keeps track of
which node owns each jvmRoute. Once the very first request is served this way, the subsequent
requests from this session will carry the assigned cookie, and the apache load balancer will always
route the requests to the node, which advertised itself as the jvmRoute owner.
Instead of using apache, an integrated HTTP Load Balancer is also available. The SIP Load
Balancer has a HTTP port where you can direct all incoming HTTP requests. The integrated HTTP
load balancer behaves exactly like apache by default, but this behavior is extensible and can be
overridden completely with the pluggable balancer algorithms. The integrated HTTP load balancer
is much easier to configure and generally requires no effort, because it reuses most SIP settings
and assumes reasonable default values.
Unlike the native apache, the integrated HTTP Load Balancer is written completely in Java, thus a
performance penalty should be expected when using it. However, the integrated HTTP Balancer
has an advantage when related SIP and HTTP requests must stick to the same node.

1.4. Pluggable balancer algorithms

The SIP/HTTP Load Balancer exposes an interface to allow users to customize the routing
decision making for special purposes. By default there are three built-in algorithms. Only one
algorithm is active at any time and it is specified with the algorithmClass property in the
configuration file.
It is up to the algorithm how and whether to support distributed architecture or how to store the
information needed for session affinity. The algorithms will be called for every SIP and HTTP
request and other significant events to make more informed decisions.

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Distributed load balancing

Note
Users must be aware that by default requests explicitly addressed to a live server
node passing through the load balancer will be forwarded directly to the server
node. This allows for pre-specified routing use-cases, where the target node is
known by the SIP client through other means. If the target node is dead, then the
node selection algorithm is used to route the request to an available node.

The following is a list of the built-in algorithms:

org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.CallIDAffinityBalancerAlgorithm
This algorithm is not distributable. It selects nodes randomly to serve a give Call-ID extracted
from the requests and responses. It keeps a map with Call-ID -> nodeId associations
and this map is not shared with other load balancers which will cause them to make different
decisions. For HTTP it behaves like apache.
org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.HeaderConsistentHashBalancerAlgorithm
This algorithm is distributable and can be used in distributed load balancer configurations. It
extracts the hash value of specific headers from SIP and HTTP messages to decide which
application server node will handle the request. Information about the options in this algorithms
is available in the balancer configuration file comments.
org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.PersistentConsistentHashBalancerAlgorithm
This algorithm is distributable and is similar to the previous algorithm, but it attempts to keep
session affinity even when the cluster nodes are removed or added, which would normally
cause hash values to point to different nodes.
org.mobicents.tools.sip.balancer.ClusterSubdomainAffinityAlgorithm
This algorithm is not distributable, but supports grouping server nodes to act as a subcluster.
Any call of a node that belongs to a cluster group will be preferentially failed over to a node
from the same group. To configure a group you can just add the subclusterMap property
in the load balancer properties and listing the IP addresses of the nodes. The groups are
enclosed in parentheses and the IP addresses are separate by commas as follows:
subclusterMap=( 192.168.1.1, 192.168.1.2 ) ( 10.10.10.10,
30.30.30.30)

20.20.20.20,

The nodes specified in a group do not have to alive and nodes that are not specified are still
allowed to join the cluster. Otherwise the algorthim behaves exactly as the default Call-ID
affinity algorthim.

1.5. Distributed load balancing

When the capacity of a single load balancer is exceeded, multiple load balancers can be used.
With the help of an IP load balancer the traffic can be distributed between all SIP/HTTP load

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Chapter 1. Load Balancer

balancers based on some IP rules or round-robin. With consistent hash and jvmRoute-based
balancer algorithms it doesn't matter which SIP/HTTP load balancer will process the request,
because they would all make the same decisions based on information in the requests (headers,
parameters or cookies) and the list of available nodes. With consistent hash algorithms there is
no state to be preserved in the SIP/HTTP balancers.

Figure 1.3. Example deployment: IP load balancers serving both directions

for incoming/outgoing requests in a cluster

1.6. Implementation of the Mobicents Load Balancer

Each individual Mobicents SIP Server in the cluster is responsible for contacting the SIP load
balancer and relaying its health status and regular "heartbeats".
From these health status reports and heartbeats, the SIP Load Balancer creates and maintains
a list of all available and healthy nodes in the cluster. The Load Balancer forwards SIP requests
between these cluster nodes, providing that the provisioning algorithm reports that each node is
healthy and is still sending heartbeats.
If an abnormality is detected, the SIP Load Balancer removes the unhealthy or unresponsive node
from the list of available nodes. In addition, mid-session and mid-call messages are failed over
to a healthy node.
The SIP Load Balancer first receives SIP requests from endpoints on a port that is specified in its
Configuration Properties configuration file. The SIP Load Balancer, using a round-robin algorithm,

14

SIP Message Flow

then selects a node to which it forwards the SIP requests. The Load Balancer forwards all samesession requests to the first node selected to initiate the session, providing that the node is healthy
and available.

1.7. SIP Message Flow

The SIP Load Balancer appends itself to the Via header of each request, so that returned
responses are sent to the SIP Balancer before they are sent to the originating endpoint.
The Load Balancer also adds itself to the path of subsequent requests by adding Record-Route
headers. It can subsequently handle mid-call failover by forwarding requests to a different node
in the cluster if the node that originally handled the request fails or becomes unavailable. The
SIP load balancer immediately fails over if it receives an unhealthy status, or irregular heartbeats
from a node.
In advanced configurations, it is possible to run more than one SIP Load Balancer. Simply edit
the balancers connection string in your SIP Server - the list is separated with semi-colon.
Figure 1.4, Basic IP and Port Cluster Configuration describes a basic IP and Port Cluster
Configuration. In the diagram, the SIP Load balancer is the server with the IP address of
192.168.1.1.

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Chapter 1. Load Balancer

Figure 1.4. Basic IP and Port Cluster Configuration

16

Appendix A. Revision History

Revision History
Revision 3.0
Thu Jun 11 2009
JaredMorgan<[email protected]>
Second release of the "parameterized" documentation.
Revision 2.0
Fri Mar 06 2009
DouglasSilas<[email protected]>
First release of the "parameterized", and much-improved JBCP documentation.

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