Virtual Server - Planet MH-4000 User Manual

4.9 Virtual Server

MH-2K/4K separates an enterprise's Intranet and Internet into LAN networks and WAN networks respectively.
Generally speaking, in order to allocate enough IP addresses for all computers, an enterprise assigns each
computer a private IP address, and converts it into a real IP address through MH-2K/4K's NAT (Network
Address Translation) function. If a server providing service to the WAN networks is located in the LAN
networks, outside users can't directly connect to the server by using the server's private IP address.
MH-2K/4K's Virtual Server can solve this problem. A virtual server has set the real IP address of MH-2K/4K's
WAN network interface to be the Virtual Server IP. Through the virtual server feature, MH-2K/4K translates the
virtual server's IP address into the private IP address of physical server in the LAN network. When outside
users on the Internet request connections to the virtual server, the request will be forwarded to the private
LAN server.
Virtual Server owns another feature known as one-to-many mapping. This is when one virtual server IP
address on the WAN interface can be mapped into 4 LAN network server private IP addresses. This option is
useful for Load Balancing, which causes the virtual server to distribute data packets to each private IP
addresses (which are the real servers). By sending all data packets to all similar servers, this increases the
server's efficiency, reduces risks of server crashes, and enhances servers' stability.
How to use Virtual Server and mapped IP
Virtual Server and Mapped IP are part of the IP mapping (also called DMZ, De-Militarization Zone) scheme.
By applying the incoming policies, Virtual Server and IP mapping work similarly. They map real IP addresses
to the physical servers' private IP addresses (which is opposite to NAT), but there are still some differences:
Virtual Server can map one real IP to several LAN physical servers while Mapped IP can
only map one real IP to one LAN physical server (1-to-1 Mapping). The Virtual Servers' load
balance feature can map a specific service request to different physical servers running the
same services.
Virtual Server can only map one real IP to one service/port of the LAN physical servers
while Mapped IP maps one real IP to all the services offered by the physical server.
IP mapping and Virtual Server work by binding the IP address of the WAN virtual server to
the private LAN IP address of the physical server that supports the services. Therefore
users from the WAN network can access servers of the LAN network by requesting the
service from the IP address provided by Virtual Server.
Multi-Homing Security Gateway User's Manual
- 99 -