# Design issue or simple limitation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Logstash\ **Created:** [November 7, 2019, 10:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/design-issue-or-simple-limitation/206944 "2019-11-07T10:06:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pierreact](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5e9695/32.png) [@pierreact](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/pierreact)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2019, 10:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/design-issue-or-simple-limitation/206944/1 "2019-11-07T10:06:24Z")
Hello, In lumberjack output, I see hosts is an array. 2 questions: 1. Is it failover only or also load balancing? The documentation is not very talkative. 2. ssl\_certificate... Are we unable to have one cert per host also? [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/plugins-outputs-lumberjack.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/plugins-outputs-lumberjack.html) Thank you 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![pierreact](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5e9695/32.png) [@pierreact](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/pierreact)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2019, 7:17am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/design-issue-or-simple-limitation/206944/2 "2019-11-11T07:17:05Z")
Anyone please? ---
**Author:** ![Moritz\_Kiesewetter](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/moritz_kiesewetter/32/51243_2.png) [@Moritz\_Kiesewetter](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Moritz_Kiesewetter)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2019, 3:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/design-issue-or-simple-limitation/206944/3 "2019-11-12T15:19:25Z")
In my experience it's kind of both. I do not use lumberjack output, but i do know what you mean by other .conf files. I put in 3 Hosts, and i noticed when i was reindexing a lot of data, that one of my Elastic-Nodes was under heavy traffic. So i took a look in my Network tool, and the Outputs stopped choosing the host which was so busy. I guess it has something to do with the response time from your certain hosts. And Of course, if one host from your array is not reachable, this option works as a failover by choosing a node which is reachable. Can't answer your second question, sorry. Hope this helps.. ---
**Author:** ![pierreact](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5e9695/32.png) [@pierreact](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/pierreact)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2019, 7:25am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/design-issue-or-simple-limitation/206944/4 "2019-11-13T07:25:24Z")
@Moritz_Kiesewetter Thank you for your reply, interesting about the balancing on heavily used nodes, indeed, I'll see if I observe the same behavior. About the SSL cert, I regenerated a self signed cert with two keys attached to it. Works fine, good I had this administrative option. I think this is a design issue. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2019, 7:25am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/design-issue-or-simple-limitation/206944/5 "2019-12-11T07:25:25Z")
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