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Floating IPs Overview

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Floating IPs Overview

Floating IP addresses are reroutable IP addresses which can be dynamically routed to the IP address (Anchor IP address) of an underlying hosting service (e.g. a Dedicated Server, Dedicated Rack or Colocation service), creating flexibility between the externally visible IP addresses and the internal hosting services.

For example, a customer that has server A with IP address 1.1.1.1 and a server B with IP address 2.2.2.2 (e.g. in 2 different racks/halls in the same DC).
The customer will be able to order a Floating IP (e.g. 3.3.3.3) and reroute it to one of the servers at a time through an interface in the Customer Portal or an API call.
This makes it possible to keep an application or website online will one of the servers is down for maintenance by simply rerouting the IP of the website/application (3.3.3.3) to the other server.

Information

A Floating IP address has to be configured to all servers that a customer wants to be able to route it to

There are two (2) types of Floating IP addresses:

  • Site Floating IPs, which can be used  to route traffic to anchor  IP addresses within the same data center. (eg. both anchor IPs (servers) are in AMS-01)
  • Metro Floating IPs, which can be used to route traffic to anchor IP addresses, which are located in two different data centers in the same metro area, (eg. anchor IP (server) A is in AMS-01 and anchor IP (server) B is in AMS-02)

Contents

Use cases

At least 2 hosting services need to be deployed to take advantage of a Floating IP address. Data sync can be achieved through Private Networking.

  • Unplanned downtime

In case that server A becomes unavailable due to unexpected downtime, you can redirect the Floating IP address to point to the IP address of server B. The traffic will flow to server B and within seconds the application is on line.

  • Maintenance / Upgrade (Planned downtime)

In case that maintenance or an upgrade needs to be performed. Before the maintenance window, you can direct the Floating IP address to the IP address of server B. The traffic will flow to server B and maintenance work can be performed to server A without downtime to the application.

When maintenance work is finished in server A, you can direct the Floating IP back to server A and you can proceed with the work in server B.

  • Relocation of servers

In case that the server needs to be relocated to another rack, most of the times a change of the main IP address is also needed. With a Floating IP address, the only change is to route it to a new Anchor IP address

Ordering Floating IP addresses

Floating IP addresses can be ordered:

  • Through our customer portal (Preferred and an automated process that takes care of delivering a Floating IP addresses in few minutes)
  • Through our sales department (Please contact sales@leaseweb.com)

The minimum amount of Floating IP addresses is 1 (/32)

The maximum amount of Floating IP addresses is 16 IP’s (/28) to be ordered via our Customer Portal.
For specific use-cases we allow up to 256 (/24 subnet), please contact our Sales department.

Floating IP addresses are available as CIDR blocks.

Important: The maximum possible amount of a /24 is available for Site Floating IP addresses only.
For Metro, it varies per location but in general it’s available between /27 till /32.

Using Floating IPs

Please follow the instructions here.

Data center availability

Site Floating IP addresses can be used to services within the same data center.

Available in below Data centers:

  • Amsterdam (AMS-01)
  • Washington (WDC-02)
  • Frankfurt (FRA-01)
  • Frankfurt (FRA-10)
  • London (LON-01)
  • Montreal (MTL-02)
  • New York (NYC-11)
  • Chicago (CHI-11)
  • Miami (MIA-11)
  • Dallas (DAL-13)
  • Phoenix (PHX-11)
  • Los Angeles (LAX-11)
  • San Francisco (SFO-12)
  • Seattle (SEA-11)
  • Singapore (SIN-01)
  • Sydney (SYD-10, SYD-11)
  • Tokyo (TYO-10)

Metro Floating IP addresses can be used to services in two (2) data centers in the same metro area.

Available in below metro areas:

  • Amsterdam (AMS-01,AMS-02)
  • London (LON-01, LON-12)
  • Singapore (SIN-01, SIN-10)
  • Hong Kong (HKG-12)

Product availability

Floating IP addresses is available for Dedicated Servers and Colocation. It is not available for Cloud services in this release.

Management tasks for floating IPs

Floating IPs Overview - Frequently Asked Questions

  • How many Floating IP addresses can I order?

    The maximum amount of Floating IP addresses that can be ordered via the Customer Portal is 16 (/28).
    On request and after justification and approval up to 256 (/24) are possible.

    Note: The /24 is available for Site Floating IP addresses only. For Metro, it varies per location but in general it’s available between /27 till /32.

  • Can I upgrade my current IP addresses to Floating?

    Floating IP addresses come from a separate block of IP addresses and therefore it is not possible to upgrade your IP to a Floating IP.

  • Can I use the Floating IPs that I have, to another data center in the same Metro area?

    Yes, you can use Metro Floating IPs, if you want to use them in the data centers in the same metro area.

  • Should I order Site or Metro Floating IP's?

    Although both Site and Metro offer the same functionality, it is advisable to only use Site Floating IP’s if you have servers in a single datacenter.

    Only in the case you have servers in multiple datacenters in the same metro-area, should you order Metro Floating IP’s.

     

  • Can I extend my Floating IP range?

    Extending an existing subnet is not possible.

    E.g. If you have a /29 Floating IP subnet and you want to extend it to /28 subnet, that will not be possible. The possible solution is to add another /29 subnet.