gorb

Or use the layer-4 load balancer built into the Linux kernel - IPVS (http://kb.linuxvirtualserver.org/wiki/IPVS). Use Keepalived (http://www.keepalived.org/) for HA and health checking or use Gorb (https://github.com/kobolog/gorb) and you can dynamically change services / backends using a REST API.

Out of kernel offloads (dpdk, solarflare's openonload, and mellanox's VMA) are good for two primary use cases: * Reducing context switches at exceptionally high packet rates * Massively reducing latency with tricks like busy polling (which the kernel's native stack is gaining) LVS is pretty much the undisputed king for serious business load balancing. I've heard (anecdotally) that Uber uses gorb[1] and google has released seesaw, which are both fancy wrappers ontop of LVS for load balancing. Source: Almost 10 years optimizing Linux and hardware for low latency in a trading firm. [1] https://github.com/kobolog/gorb [2] https://github.com/google/seesaw