Rule Status - Field Help

Current Statistics

To refresh statistics at any time, click Refresh Statistics.

Name
The name you choose for the rule. This name can contain any alphanumeric character, underscore, hyphen, or period. It can be from 1 to 20 characters and cannot contain any blanks.

Rule type
The type of the rule. Possible types are:
  • IP address
    Based on the client IP address. Use this type of rule if you want to screen the customers and allocate resources based on where they are coming from.
  • Time of day
    Based on the time of day. Utilized for capacity planning reasons. Example, if your Web Site gets hit most during the same period of time every day, you might want to dedicate more servers to HTTP during peak times as opposed to slower times.
  • Metric all
    Based on the current metric value for all the servers in the server set. For the metric all rule, you choose a system metric (cpuload, memload, or your own customized system metric script), and Site Selector compares the system metric value (returned by the Metric Server agent residing in each load-balanced server) with the begin and end range that you specify in the rule. The current system metric value for all the servers in the server set must be within the range for the rule to fire.
  • Metric avg
    Based on the average of the current metric values for all the servers in the server set. For the metric average rule, you choose a system metric (cpuload, memload, or your own customized system metric script), and Site Selector compares the system metric value (returned by the Metric Server agent residing in each load-balanced server) with the begin and end range that you specify in the rule. The average of the current system metric values for all the servers in the server set must be within the range for the rule to fire.
  • Always true
    An always true rule will always be selected, unless all the servers associated with it are down. For this reason, it should typically be set at a lower priority than other rules. (Think of it as an else statement in programming logic.)

Note: For more information on rules-based load-balancing, please refer to the "Configure rules-based load balancing" section of the Load Balancer Administration Guide.

Times fired
The number of times this rule has fired since it was added.


Configuration Settings

If applicable, edit any of the values on the Configurations Settings tab, then click Update Configuration.

Metric Name Valid only for Metric all and Metric avg rules)
Name of the metric this rule is to consider. The metric name must be configured on the site name where the rule has been set in order to be valid. The default is cpuload.

Begin range
The lower value in the range used to determine whether or not the rule is true. The kind of value and its default depends on the type of rule:
  • ip address - the address of the client as either a symbolic name or in dotted-decimal format. The default value is 0.0.0.0.
  • time of day - an integer based on the time of day. The default is 0.
  • metric all - the minimum value expected in the server set. The default is 0.
  • metric avg - the minimum average value expected for all the servers in the server set. The default is 0.

End range
The higher value in the range used to determine whether or not the rule is true. The kind of value and its default depends on the type of rule:
  • ip address - the address of the client as either a symbolic name or in dotted-decimal format. The default value is 255.255.255.255.
  • time of day - an integer based on the time of day. The default value is 24, representing midnight.
  • metric all - the maximum value expected for all the servers in the server set. The default is 100.
  • metric avg - the maximum average value expected for all the servers in the server set. The default is 100.

Priority (optional)
An integer representing the order in which rules are reviewed. If no priority is given to the first rule you set, by default it is given a priority value of 1 and evaluated first. The next rule is then given a priority value of 11 and evaluated second, (last priority value + 10, in this case 1 + 10), third rule = 21, fourth rule = 31, and so forth. The rules are evaluated in numerical order, lower numbers taking precedence over higher ones.



Lists

List of Servers
The addresses of servers currently associated with the rule.

To remove a server, highlight the server in the list and click Remove.