Which task is performed by the Avi Controller?

The NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi) architecture separates the control plane from the data plane. The Avi Controller functions as the centralized control plane, acting as the single point of management and analytics. Its primary role is to manage the lifecycle of the Service Engines (SEs) and distribute configuration policies—such as Virtual Service definitions, pool configurations, and health monitor settings—to the SEs. The SEs, which form the data plane, are responsible for executing these policies and handling all client and server traffic.

A. Forwarding client traffic is a data plane function performed by the Service Engines, not the Controller.
B. SSL termination is a data-intensive, data plane task handled directly by the Service Engines that are in the traffic path.
D. Sending health monitor probes to backend servers is an active data plane function executed by the Service Engines to determine server availability.

1. VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer Documentation, "Architecture and Components", Avi Controller section. It states, "The Avi Controller is the single point of management and control (control plane) that serves as the brain of the system... The Controller pushes the policies to the Service Engines."

2. VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer Documentation, "Architecture and Components", Avi Service Engine section. This section clarifies, "The Avi SEs are the data plane engines that handle all the traffic and provide all the load balancing and application delivery features."