Application Delivery Controller & DNS Load Balancing Solutions

Multi-Homing:

Fast and Economical Global Application Delivery & Load Balancing

LinkProof, Radware's wan application load balancing multi-homing solution, optimizes centralized application delivery across the WAN, so that business can happen everywhere, at the speed of opportunity. By ensuring optimal utilization of multiple WAN connections, it provides reliable and scalable application delivery over multiple WAN links.

LinkProof link load balancers provide remote users with maximum availability and performance for business-critical applications that are hosted in the data center. It lets you choose the connectivity performance/cost ratio you need and enables complete service provider independence by eliminating the complexity of network protocols such as border gateway protocol (BGP). It facilitates easy and immediate line/bandwidth enhancement without any application downtime. LinkProof combines the functionality of:

• Multilink WAN connection traffic management
• Application-based link selection
• Bandwidth management
• Cost-based link optimization

This cohesive WAN optimization solution offers a way to optimize critical application delivery from a central data center across the WAN. By delivering on the promise of centrally hosted/globally delivered applications, LinkProof ensures enhanced productivity and fluent business transaction at every point across the WAN.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery:

100% Availability for Critical Web-Enabled Applications

Radware provides holistic BC solutions including server load balancing that meet the varying needs of these environments. A server load balancing solution from Radware helps your network avoid unnecessary strain, increasing uptime and efficiency.

Continuous Access for Data Centers

By fully leveraging multiple enterprise data centers with superior global re-direction, you can ensure continuous Internet access with WAN optimization and high-availability WAN connectivity. Radware's approach to optimizing the delivery of applications over IP networks uses a host of integrated application delivery services including:

• Bandwidth management
• Denial of Service (DoS)
• Health monitoring
• Intrusion prevention
• Server load balancing
• Traffic redirection
• Traffic shaping

Fully optimizing globally distributed resources is critical to ensuring effective business continuity and disaster recovery – as well as increasing business productivity and maximizing return on IT infrastructure investment. For multiple data center environments, Radware offers superior global re-direction technology as part of its core application delivery solutions. These server optimization solutions ensure no downtime or lost transactions and deliver the fastest application response times.

Global Load Balancing Capabilities

Radware's global load balancing provides transparent re-direction between multiple data centers for backup disaster recovery (DR) sites. In many instances, these sites are used as an active site (during normal online operations) in tandem with a main IT facility to capitalize on IT investments. Most DR site solutions are passive, focusing on the replication of data and/or applications between DR and online sites, so that one site can immediately take over in case the other goes down. Another crucial aspect of this seamless fail-over is the mechanism that automatically redirects application-user requests and traffic streams to the back-up site when the main facility goes down (including the automatic detection of this failure). Having an active-active configuration optimizes resources and ensures business continuity, providing the greatest return on investment (ROI).

Consider the following issues when deciding to integrate global re-direction in a BC solution:

• Do customers, employees and business partners need to be redirected from the failed site to the back-up site in a matter of seconds?
• Is more than one application being hosted at each site?
• Does the back-up site need to be active, operating in tandem with the main facility?

If the answer to any of these questions is "yes," then global load balancing with re-direction is a required DR capability. It's needed to address failures, as well as to ensure that users are directed to the site delivering the best user experience in terms of fast response time and transaction continuity. Improved user experience and transparency can be achieved using solutions armed with advanced re-direction methods.

Multi-Tier Global Application Load Balancing

Radware's multi-tier global application load balancing architecture delivers fast user response time and application/transaction persistency to ensure transaction completeness, session consistency and end-user satisfaction. This approach overcomes domain name system (DNS) failures using three re-direction approaches with Radware's ADC. By communicating and sharing site information, businesses are ensured that each step of the global re-direction is achieved. Site selection and BC are achieved by assessing

• Reach
• Site selection (based on server load, hops, and latency)
• Re-direction (application re-direction techniques include HTTP, RTSP, Triangulation, SIP, and Client NAT)

DNS Load Balancing & Resolution: Radware's ADC, acting as a DNS server, communicates with the client's DNS server to determine the site that best answers the client's request based on load and proximity.

Global Application Re-Direction: Radware's ADC communicates with the client to determine the best site based on load, persistency and content. Its load balancing appliance uses re-direction methods such as Client NAT, DNS, Global Triangulation, HTTP and RTSP to correct inferior site selection made by the DNS server.

Local Server Selection: Radware's ADC selects the best local server for the client's request based on persistency content, server load and availability.

Load Balancing Solution: Radware offers load balancing and application delivery solutions that keep your network running efficiently. By directing client requests and actions to the most efficient available server, your networks are saved unnecessary strain. Alteon NG features advanced load balancing technology that eliminate traffic surges, server bottlenecks, disconnects and downtime.

Addressing the Risk of Internet and WAN Disruptions

Radware also provides WAN optimization with a high-availability network path re-direction solution. Although Internet service providers (ISPs) have made significant strides in providing continuous service in the wake of disasters, outages still occur and are likely to remain a reality, as long as human error, malice, natural disasters, and business rivalry persist. The simplest and most effective approach to dealing with WAN and Internet reliability issues is the concept of multi-homing, also referred to as Multi-WAN switching.

A multi-homed corporate network uses more than one link and/or service provider to connect to the outside world (i.e., Internet or WAN) or to interconnect between sites. The basic premise is that while little control can be maintained over the continuity of service of a single provider over a single link, introducing diversity through multiple links provisioned over varied physical and logical paths into the Internet can significantly reduce the statistical likelihood of downtime. Although the concept of a back-up link isn't novel, low-cost, LinkProof wan optimization solution is. This multi wan load balancing provides:

• Immediate detection of link failures and automatic fail-over to an available link, so that the transition is transparent to users
• Use of varied link types (e.g., T1 Frame Relay combined with ADSL broadband) through a single device to create cost-effective, yet resilient, networks
• Simultaneous utilization of all available links and bandwidth (load balancing), so that connectivity costs aren't wasted on a "dark" or poorly utilized back-up lines
• No ISP hassles – ISP cooperation is not required as different IP address spaces issued by different providers can be supported

LinkProof's multi-WAN switches provide a quicker return on investment (ROI) than previous approaches to multi-homing, such as border gateway protocol (BGP). Savings are realized through lower implementation and maintenance costs, as well as through more cost-effective use of available bandwidth, resulting in lower monthly connectivity bills. LinkProof lets you introduce back-up links to support your business continuity strategy. Real-time health checks of all available WAN paths ensure immediate fail-over to a functional link in the case of service outages, so that data, applications and web sites are available 24/7, without compromising the performance of any of the applications delivered over the network.