Why use a foundry server iron load balancer
So what exactly is a server load balancer (SLB) and how is it going to help you?
An SLB is a rather expensive, but very effective, way to minimize downtime on an important website that requires 0 downtime. The load balancer that I have the most experience with is the foundry serveriron load balancer that ev1servers currently offers. The primary gain from a load balancer is the ability to host one, or a small group, of websites easily on multiple servers without having to rely on unbalanced solutions like round robin (RR) dns. The load balancer is configured so that each website has a single incoming IP and then when traffic hits the load balancer it will send it to which ever server has the least amount of connections. In this way if for some reason a server starts to slow down and the connections queue up it will stop sending them.
Another equally important feature is that the load balancer checks the servers every couple of seconds via a layer 7 health check to ensure they are up. In a nutshell the layer 7 check means that the server is connected to and the balancer waits for a valid response before certifying that the server is indeed online. If for some reason a server fails a check the server is taken out of the cluster and no more traffic is sent to it. That means if for some reason a server locks up or becomes inaccessible no more traffic is sent to it and only a few seconds of downtime is created, which would only be detected by a small portion of clients who could simply hit refresh to get the page back online.
The load balancer also supports advanced features such as layer 7 routing which allows for redirecting traffic based on the url. For instance it would allow you to send all traffic with “abc123″ in the url to a seperate server then normal.
In summamary the load balancer is a very cost effective way to create a very stable and high uptime website for a mission critical website. While not best-suited for a shared hosting enviroment the load balancer is ideal for hosting a small group of websites on a cluster of servers ranging from 2 -10 or even more webservers. We have tested the load balancers extensively and they are able to easily handle traffic loads in excess of 500Mbits for indefinate amounts of time and are rated at over 800Mbps sustained transfer. If you have any specific questions about the serveriron load balancer offerings at ev1 and are interested in having Total Server Solutions setup and or manage your servers please feel free to contact us via customercare@totalserversolutions.com!