Any network gurus? (question about client side link routing)

[ramirami]

Ok I know this is a automotive forum but wondering if anyone knows the answer here....

I am searching for a highly reliable fault tolerant hardware solution for routing and load balancing for a multi-node system at work. This maintains both server-side and client-side links.

Server side is straighforward. How do routers manage the client-side links...or is it not possible ?

[robrecht]

N_Jay should be along pretty soon to figure out what the hell you're talking about.

[iglesias]

Originally posted by ramirami
Ok I know this is a automotive forum but wondering if anyone knows the answer here....

I am searching for a highly reliable fault tolerant hardware solution for routing and load balancing for a multi-node system at work. This maintains both server-side and client-side links.

Server side is straighforward. How do routers manage the client-side links...or is it not possible ?

If you're looking to load balance servers, I know Foundry makes load balancing switches. The switch maintains information on what client it has assigned to which server.

I'm sure there are other load balancing switches, but the only ones I've seen are the Foundry. We have a couple here at work. The Foundry switches are connected to the router; the router doesn't know about the load balancing going on behind the switches.

[ramirami]

Originally posted by iglesias

If you're looking to load balance servers, I know Foundry makes load balancing switches. The switch maintains information on what client it has assigned to which server.

I'm sure there are other load balancing switches, but the only ones I've seen are the Foundry. We have a couple here at work. The Foundry switches are connected to the router; the router doesn't know about the load balancing going on behind the switches.

but on a multi-node system how are client links setup..

[CMasten]

Originally posted by ramirami
Ok I know this is a automotive forum but wondering if anyone knows the answer here....

I am searching for a highly reliable fault tolerant hardware solution for routing and load balancing for a multi-node system at work. This maintains both server-side and client-side links.

Server side is straighforward. How do routers manage the client-side links...or is it not possible ?

Well... having been in this business for 20 years... I would recommend going to www.cisco.com and look over some white papers.

[iglesias]

Originally posted by ramirami


but on a multi-node system how are client links setup..

Let's say you have 4 web servers behind a load balancing switch. You setup a "virtual IP" address (what Foundry calls them) on the load balancing switch that the clients will use to connect to it (you set this up in your DNS server as www.mypilottoystore.com). The load balancing switch will accept each client request to connect to the VIP address and parcel it out to one of the 4 servers behind it. The switch keeps track of which client is talking to which server and passes the traffic appropriately. Each of the servers has their own IP address that the switch knows about so it can pass the traffic to them. The load balancing switch usually monitors the health of the servers behind it so that if one dies/crashes, it will stop passing traffic to it until it comes back up.

You can find more information about the Foundry ServerIron switches here along wth links to white papers and application notes that explain this better than I can.

As I said before, Foundry is not the only company that makes load balancing switches, but it's the one that we have equipment from. I'm sure a google search will find other ones for you.

[labow]

Originally posted by ramirami
Ok I know this is a automotive forum but wondering if anyone knows the answer here....

I am searching for a highly reliable fault tolerant hardware solution for routing and load balancing for a multi-node system at work. This maintains both server-side and client-side links.

Server side is straighforward. How do routers manage the client-side links...or is it not possible ?

Wow...that statement is loaded with sales buzzwords. It sounds like someone has been talking to way to many sales guys from Cisco!

Not knowing exactly what you are trying to do (what application your load balancing, what kind of links you are maintaining, etc) there are a couple of ways you could go about this.

You can go with a chassis based solution, such as the Cisco 6500 platform, which you can buy different line cards which will give you loadbalancing and routing in a single chassis, you would buy two chassis (plus two sets of cards) to provide your fault tolerance.

Another option is to go with an appliance based solution such as F5. This is a standalone loadbalancer. Again, you would have to buy two for your fault tolerance. If your routing is in place you can save a boat load of money buy just buying standalone appliances and sticking them into your network.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both solutions. This would depend on your requirements. If you gave some more details I could get more specific.

[N_Jay]

Originally posted by robrecht
N_Jay should be along pretty soon to figure out what the hell you're talking about.

Sorry, Nope.

I leave the geekware to the geeks!

[macroy]

I'm not sure what you mean by "client side link routing". But for UDLR, you want Cisco. I don't think foundry does Link Routing (I can be wrong though).

[sdlevi27]

Take a look at F5 networks (http://www.f5.com) or as someone mentioned before Cisco application switches.

[ramirami]

Originally posted by sdlevi27
Take a look at F5 networks (http://www.f5.com) or as someone mentioned before Cisco application switches.

yes lookslike f5's BIGIP is what I am looking for.....

[dbaggette]

A hardware solution from f5, cisco, or foundry will work. I support clusters on all of these platforms, but by far, the most bang for the buck is the Foundry. Their serverironXL series can be had on the refurbed market for less than 2k. F5 BigIP and Cisco's local director are great products and for large enterprise environments, they are hard to beat. But, if you just have a few servers, I'd look at the Foundry 8 or 16 port xl. Since redundancy is your concern, I would implement two of them.