Can Cloud load balancer use other than ServiceNet network

The are couple of network that you are going to hear when hosting physical servers and using cloud product at Rackspace. The most important one are:

• Public network
• ServiceNet network
• Private cloud network

Public network is a conventional large scale, 3 tier network (built using access, distribution, core routers and switches) that forward all public traffic. There is cloud public network and there is a dedicated public network.

ServiceNet is internal network. We use the same name either you have a cloud server or a dedicated server. All your internal communication between cloud-cloud and dedicated-dedicated can or is happening over it. The dedicated ServiceNet is separated from the cloud ServiceNet even though the names are the same.

Private cloud network is an enhancement on the cloud site that allows you to create your own isolated network for the cloud tenant you created. It can be used for any  traffic you want and you can assign any subneting you wish. This network is implemented in a form of an network overlay with a help of SDN technology (Nicira).

By default all cloud servers and other cloud products will be connected to cloud ServiceNet network. That means every cloud load balancer at Rackspace can communicate with cloud server using internal network.

At the moment (May 2013) there is  no support for cloud load balancer (CLB) to sent or receive traffic from private cloud network. If you want to load balance traffic across cloud servers using CLB you have only 2 options:

• user ServiceNet network interface (10.*)
• use public network interface (cloud server additional bandwidth costs will be added)

The public network is not free and you need to pay for every MB you sent out (pricing).

References

1. http://support.rightscale.com/06-FAQs/What_is_Rackspace_ServiceNet_and_how_can_I_use_it%3F
2. http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/rackconnect-with-cloud-networks-faq