VMware Avi Load Balancer

VMware Avi Load Balancer is a software-defined Application Delivery Controller (ADC) that replaces traditional hardware load balancers with an elastic, centrally managed platform. It provides L4–L7 load balancing, web application security, global server load balancing and rich analytics across on-prem, private and public clouds.

By decoupling the control plane (Avi Controller) from the data plane (Service Engines), Avi enables a cloud-like operating model for application delivery: scalable, automated and fully API-driven.

Key capabilities

• Elastic, software-defined load balancing: Scale services up or down on standard x86, VMs or containers instead of proprietary appliances, and pool capacity across data centers and clouds.
• Unified application delivery services: One platform for local and global server load balancing, TLS/SSL offload, web and API security (WAF, DDoS, bot protection) and Kubernetes ingress / gateway services.
• Deep application analytics: End-to-end telemetry with real-time dashboards, searchable logs and client insights to troubleshoot faster and make data-driven capacity and performance decisions.
• Automation and self-service: Full lifecycle automation from Day 0 to Day N via REST APIs, SDKs and integrations (Ansible, Terraform, CI/CD), enabling platform teams to offer self-service to Dev and App teams.
• Consistent multi-cloud operations: Central policy and configuration for applications running in VMware environments, bare metal, and major public clouds, with the same services and security posture everywhere.

Typical outcomes

• Replace fragmented hardware ADC fleets with a single, software-only platform
• Reduce operational effort through central management, analytics and automation
• Improve application resilience, performance and security across data centers and clouds
• Enable faster rollout of new apps and changes through self-service and API-driven workflows