[71126] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: NLB Recommendations
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon, Michael)
Wed Jun 9 12:51:00 2004
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 11:49:20 -0500
From: "Gordon, Michael" <Michael.Gordon@savvis.net>
To: "North American Network Operators Group" <nanog@merit.edu>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
I have experience with F5 BigIP, Foundry, Cisco CSS, Nortel Alteon and
the Inkra VSS. =20
F5 is great for ease of use. It's built on BSD, so the CLI is exactly
unix with special commands to manipulate the load balancing features. I
think you can only used this box in routed-mode LB, but someone speak up
if you can use it in bridged-mode. They have an iRule feature where
you can filter and route traffic based on many parameter, such as
various http headers. If you have a lot of layer 7 switching to do, you
can configure it easily on the F5. Their support, however, needs work.
I haven't called in a year, so it may have improved. =20
The Foundry is very good at many sessions per second. I've used these
mostly in DSR (direct server return) mode and have had good luck with
them. For basic layer 4 switching they're very good. I've never used
any layer 7 features on the Foundry. Foundry's documentation needs
help, though.=20
The Cisco Content Services Switch is ok, but overpriced. I don't care
for the interface. I've never loaded this one up, so I'm not sure how
it performs under heavly load. =20
The Nortel Alteon is pretty good. I've seen some odd issues with the
VMA architecture, but they're usually addressed in the latest patch.
The cli takes a burn-in period, but once you know it you can fly on the
box. Configuring layer 7 features can be cryptic, however. Use they're
application guides for help. I've used the Alteon in routed-mode and
bridged-mode load balancing. =20
Lastly, the Inkra. I've been using the Inkra for a few years, but it's
relatively new compared to the others listed above. They market it as a
virtual services switch which means it not only does load balancing, but
also firewall, ssl acceleration, ids/idp, etc. We've seen big
improvements in the past six months with load balancing performace due
to the release of 2.0 code. I'm eagerly awaiting their 3.0 due out in
mid summer.=20
NOTE: I may be biased since the company I work for has been helping
Inkra develop and test it for several years. =20
You may want to join the list lb-l@vegan.net for more load balancing
advice and help. =20
Mike
=20
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of
Mike Lyon
Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 11:07 AM
To: James Baldwin
Cc: North American Network Operators Group
Subject: Re: NLB Recommendations
I have had nothing but good luck with Foundry's ServerIron. Very
versatile. Cisco-like CLI. I have always had good support with
Foundry's TAC too.
-Mike
On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 19:32:44 -0400, James Baldwin <jbaldwin@antinode.net>
wrote:
>=20
>=20
> I'm looking for recommendations for network load balancers. These, at
> this time, will primarily be used to attach to a cluster of webservers
> although I would like a solution which can be repurposed to other
> applications later. I am looking at F5's Big IP, Cisco's SLB, and
> Foundry's ServerIron at this time.
>=20
>
