Gateway Load Balancer is an SKU of the Azure Load Balancer portfolio catered for high performance and high availability scenarios with Trellix Network Virtual Appliances (NVAs). The Azure Gateway Load Balancer (GWLB) enables you to deploy, scale, and manage virtual appliances, such as firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, traffic mirroring, and deep packet inspection systems. It combines a transparent network gateway (i.e., a single entry and exit point for all traffic) and distributes traffic while scaling your Trellix vIPS appliances with the demand.
GWLB listens for all IP packets across all ports and forwards traffic to the target group that's specified in the listener rule. It maintains flow stickiness to a specific instance in the backend pool along with flow symmetry. As a result, packets traverse the same network path in both directions and a consistent route is ensured.
Traffic sent to and from Gateway Load Balancer uses the VXLAN protocol.
Key features of Gateway Load Balancer are as follows:
Integrate Trellix vIPS appliances transparently into the network path
Easily add or remove Trellix vIPS appliances in the network path
Scale with ease while managing costs
Improve Trellix vIPS appliance availability
Chain applications across regions and subscriptions
Limitations of Gateway Load Balancer are as follows:
Gateway Load Balancer doesn't work with the Global Load Balancer tier
Only North-South traffic is supported in the GWLB-based Azure environment.
For more information, see Gateway Load Balancer.