Virtual (Network) Hardware Load Balancer for E1 JAS

[jdel6654]

We have a little under 200 concurrent E1 JAS users. Currently we are running WAS on iSeries but going to Windows.

We started to evaluate network hardware load balancers. Since we are running VMware for our JAS instances, a couple of vendors came back with a "virtual" hardware load balancer.

The one we are looking at for E1 is called CoyotePoint Equalizer OnDemand (http://www.coyotepoint.com/products/equalizer-ondemand).

The specs are as follows:


Performance

L4 Max Connections 2,000,000
L7 Requests/Sec 100,000
L4 Throughput 1 Gbps
L7 Throughput 1 Gbps
HTTPS Transactions/Sec 3,000
SSL Throughput 500 Mpbs


I would be curious to know if anyone has had any experience with virtual hardware load balancers from any verndor.

 

[78aspide78]

You don't like WAS cluster?

 

[altquark]

My suggestion is to look at Zen LoadBalancer - which is opensource. I presented this a few years back at Collaborate, and several companies have implemented the Zen LoadBalancer. They do have a "corporate" solution for those wishing to spend $$$ - but I think the Zen LoadBalancer has everything an F5 has plus its a LOT easier to implement and manage :

www.zenloadbalancer.com

Hope that helps ! You can search this forum for more info on other companies' experience...

 

[78aspide78]

Jon, the same question to you: WAS cluster is not enough?

 

[jdel6654]

You can't configure a VIP with WAS clustering. Some people use round-robin DNS in this capacity but it doesn't work right. People lose their sessions.

Also, the WAS cluster is not as reliable as a NHLB because sometimes you need to put servers in or take servers out of the cluster without disrupting the WAS cell configuration.

I have also found that the algorithms for load distribution on WAS are unpredictable and ineffective.

 

[altquark]

WAS cluster doesn't help with application server or BSSV load balancing either. Also it requires a more expensive license - though I don't use Websphere myself, and haven't for a long while. Certainly with Weblogic you'd have to implement Weblogic Enterprise - which is not a part of the red stack and would be required to be licensed separately at significant cost.

Zen takes literally minutes to install and set up. It is can also be clustered - therefore ensuring it doesn't become the single point of failure.

It really doesn't need any in-depth knowledge to set up. The image is downloaded from Zens' website, and you start it up as a VMWare appliance. Navigate to the webpage, and its all pretty self-explanatory !

 

[altquark]

I'm attaching my 2012 Collaborate presentation on using Zen LoadBalancer since my website is being transitioned currently (!)

 

[jdel6654]

Thanks Jon.

 

[78aspide78]

You can use windows load balancer to round robin the request to machine a and machine b and have a vertical was cluster on each machine. Some customers use this configuration with the old good OAS, know issue reported.

 

[jdel6654]

I saw issues with it on WLS, WAS, & OAS.

There is no sticky session with that kind of configuration.

 

[78aspide78]

I mean no issue never reported.

 

[jdel6654]

query "round robin" on jdelist.com and you will see for yourself.

 

[78aspide78]

Windows NLB support Single Affinity and Class C Affinity.

I never saw a session lost issue.

 

[78aspide78]

To be clear, I don't mean the Win NBL is better then Hardware or Software solution. It's just another solution.

 

[kstieers]

I'm late to this thread, but we've been using a NetScalar VPX 200 for 4 years to load balance Exchange, E1, and intranet and external web presence. 500 total users (intranet and exchange), about 50-60 E1. Before that we had Cisco CSS 15001 hardware load balancers. It was easy to set up, and we haven't had any issues...