.. role:: green

.. role:: red

.. role:: blue

symBalancers Overview
=====================

**symBalancers** are fully managed load balancers which allow you to scale your site horizontally
across multiple servers.  Balancers also provide *high availability*, which means the balancer 
does *health checks* to verify backend servers are reachable and responding as expected. 

symBalancers are $12/month.

.. Hint::
    If you are brand new to the concept of load balancers, we recommend doing the 
    `Quick Start Tutorial. <https://docs.syminet.com/slice/howtos/symbalancer_quickstart.html>`_
    This should only take a few minutes and links back here once complete. 


Create symBalancer
------------------

To create a new symBalancer, click the :guilabel:`Create symBalancer` button, and fill out the 
window that appears:

#. Select a **Region**.
#. Enter a **Hostname**.
#. Click :guilabel:`Create`

This is enough to create a symBalancer.  However, there are some additional options:

Additional Options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Assign Firewall
  Assign one of your :doc:`../networking/firewalls` to secure network traffic.

The new symBalancer will show up in the **symBalancer list** table.  It will have a 
light blue background while it builds.  Builds should complete within a few minutes, at 
which point the background will switch to light green to indicate they are active and ready.  
You might have to reload the page to refresh status. 

.. _symbalancer_list:

symBalancer List
----------------

.. image:: ../_static/images/symbalancer_list.png
    :target: ../_static/images/symbalancer_list.png

The **symBalancer list** table contains a list of symBalancers under your account.  Each row 
can have a different background color depending on the status of the balancer:

:green:`Green`
  All backend servers are active and healthy. 

:blue:`Blue`
  Balancer is building, or there are one or more backend servers which are down, but not 
  all of them.

:red:`Red`
  All backend servers are down.

Each row has the following columns:

Name
  Hostname, along with the Region and ID below it.  The unique ID is used for support 
  requests and billing purposes in case the symBalancer name is changed.  You can click 
  the symBalancer name to access :ref:`symbalancer_details`.

Status
  Number of backend servers up / down.

IP Address
  Public IPv4 address.  See :ref:`symbalancer_addresses` below.


Rename
  Rename your symBalancer.

Delete
   Delete symBalancer.  Once confirmed, the symBalancer is deleted and the billing stops.

.. _symbalancer_details:

symBalancer Details
-------------------

The symBalancer Details page can be accessed by clicking the symBalancer name in the 
:ref:`symbalancer_list` page.  There is a row of tabs along the top for managing the 
:doc:`symBalancer functions <symbalancer_functions>`.

.. _symbalancer_addresses:

Public IPv4
~~~~~~~~~~~

A public IPv4 address is provisioned when your symBalancer is created.  It is unique to your 
symBalancer and makes it reachable to the public internet.