Red Hat Enterprise Linux LVS clustering uses a Linux machine called the active router to send requests from the Internet to a pool of servers. To accomplish this, LVS clusters consist of two basic machine classifications — the LVS routers (one active and one backup) and a pool of real servers which provide the critical services.

The active router serves two roles in the cluster:

The backup router's job is to monitor the active router and assume its role in the event of failure.