load balancer

[Vishal Augustine]

Can you suggest a few load balancing softwares for servers. Tow independent machines (servers) running with server processes. Incoming requests need to be balanced between these processes ...

Writing a program is one solution. Do you know any standard softwares that can do the same

Thanks and Regards
Vishal

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi

Check out the HP product PRM

Paula

[Stefan Farrelly]

What I think you are talking about it handled by a network device - usually something like a CISCO router whith some software to load balance incoming requests to > 1 server. You wouldnt do this on an HP server per se.

[James Beamish-White]

Another hardware load balancer is from Radware, though F1 has a product too that I hear is quote good. These are geared more towards http/ftp however.

Cheers,
James

[Vishal Augustine]

Thanks all ...

I was looking for both network and PRM type software ...

One clarification, I need is on how these works ...

Suppose I have 4 server processes (p1, p2, p3, p4) distributed between two machines. Say I make a new connection to the server and the load balancer assigns ps1 to my session. Next time I make another request from the same client session (session has not changed), will the above mentioned load-balancers (esp network load balancers) route the request to the same server process - ps1 ??

Thanks and Regards
Vishal

[Wodisch_1]

Hi Vishal,

the way I understand your question I would recommend reading the web-pages about the OpenView product "PolicyXpert":
http://www.openview.hp.com/products/policyexpert/index.asp

From there read what "RSVP" and "COPS" can do for you...

HTH,
Wodisch

[Christopher Caldwell]

Most of the good load balancers have the concept of session built in (as long as you tell the load balancer you need to have a given URL session enabled).

Here's a snippet from the product literature of Cisco's CSS 11000:

Directing Web traffic based on full visibility of URLs, host tags, and cookies
Enabling premium services for e-commerce and Web hosting providers
Strengthening DoS protection, cache/firewall load-balancing, and 'flash-crowd' management

The load balancers use different techniques to distribute load - here's some sales drivel from Cisco again:

"...perform comprehensive resource verification before routing user requests, ensuring they are directed to the location that has the best response time and the least load for the requested content"

The Cisco tool is aimed at web servers. If you're doing something else client/server, things become more tricky.

For instance ServiceGuard will keep a TCP session up if a network card fails on a host, and there's a standby network card available on that host. If you have to fail to another host, the session is torn down.

[kish_1]

if you are looking application orinted load balancing I suggest LSF from http://www.platform.com/

[rick jones]

some possibilities, in no particular order, would include the Resonate software - www.resonate.com, or the Zeus Load Balancer - www.zeus.com