How to enable Per-app SE mode for a Service Engine group

Background

Per-app SE mode enables cost-effective deployment of load balancers, on a dedicated LB-per-application basis with a high degree of application isolation. This setting is at an SE group level. When an SE group is configured in per-app SE mode, a vCPU counts at 25% rate for licensing usage. For example, each 2-vCPU SE in a per-app SE group utilizes half a vCPU license (2 * 0.25).

Per-app SE mode is limited to a maximum of 2 virtual services per SE, so that customers can also enable HA. All HA modes are supported.

Per-app SE mode is available from the Avi UI and CLI starting with version 16.2. Figure 1 illustrates its location in the Avi UI.

Instructions

Configuring Per-App SE Mode in the Avi UI

Navigate to Infrastructure > Service Engine Groups. Select the SE group to be edited. Click the pencil (edit) icon as highlighted in figure 2.

Figure 2. List of SE groups
Per-app SE mode is available under High Availability & Placement Setting, as shown in figure 3. By default, per-app SE mode is disabled for any SE group.

Figure 3. Per-app SE mode option
Click the check box to enable per-app SE mode and then click Save.

Figure 4. Enable per-app SE mode

Note that the displayed value of Virtual Services per Service Engine automatically changes to 2.

Configuring Per-App SE Mode in the Avi CLI

Invoke the following commands from the Avi Controller’s shell prompt to enable per-app SE mode when defining any SE group.


[admin Controller]: > configure serviceenginegroup <name-of-the-SE-group>
[admin Controller]: serviceenginegroup> per_app
Overwriting the previously entered value for per_app
[adminController]: serviceenginegroup> save
per_app | True

Restriction

One can only set per-app SE mode when first defining an SE group. It can’t be toggled on a pre-existing setup. Any attempt to toggle the option will be ignored, and an error message will be displayed.