Server Load Balancing

This book is a guide to the technology that is changing the way e- commerce sites, web infrastructures, and corporate networks are designed and implemented. Load balancing overcomes many of the scaling and flexibility obstacles that e-commerce sites and large corporate networks face today. Server Load Balancing explains the concepts of load balancing and offers consistent terminology and practical guidance for planning and implementing it in most environments.

It includes a configuration guide with diagrams and sample configurations for installing, configuring, and maintaining products from four major vendors: Alteon WebSystems, Cisco's CSS Series (formerly ArrowPoint), F5's BIG-IP, and the Foundry ServerIron series. By comparing several load balancing products, Server Load Balancing enables a deeper understanding of the technology.

No system administrator responsible for traffic management should be without this practical guide.
An increasing number of shops are putting clustering and load-balancing technologies into place so as to provide high availability and an economic way to scale server capacity. The slender Server Load Balancing explains the state of the art in multiple-server technologies implemented at Layers 4 and 5 on the OSI network model.

Though author Tony Bourke includes a fair bit of good information on configuring four commercial load-balancing solutions, the most valuable part of his work is his high-level discussions of how load balancing fits into a larger network environment, and his explanations of the relative merits of alternative approaches to the problem.

A comparison of flat-based solutions with designs based on Network Address Translation (NAT) is part of this book's value; further appeal takes the form of dozens of network diagrams that document typical working solutions. Bourke shows his familiarity with real-life design constraints by documenting various load-balancing solutions and pointing out what each can do for an organization--he points out that a host that implements a NAT-based balancing solution can double as a firewall, thereby saving some money that would have been required for a dedicated security device.

He also provides introductory material on the competing solutions' administration interfaces, enabling implementers to get a head start on their work without wading into vendor documentation. --David Wall Topics covered: The problems presented by requirements for high availability and failover, and the solutions that server load balancing can provide.

In addition to general information on flat- and NAT-based load balancing solutions, this book documents strategies for implementing Alteon WebSystems, Cisco CSS, F5 BIG-IP, and Foundry ServerIron.