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Why server load balancing tips the scales in favour of business


Johannesburg, 30 Oct 2012
Phil Thersby, KEMP Product Manager at First Distribution.
Phil Thersby, KEMP Product Manager at First Distribution.

On the face of it, the term server load balancing implies equilibrium and stability. When it comes to commerce, experts within the global server load balancing and application delivery controller market say this technology is imperative to corporate network performance and sustainability.

Executive leadership at KEMP Technologies, global manufacturer of server load balancers and application delivery controllers, say primarily, this technology acts as a 'traffic controller' on the network, sharing internal network traffic and incoming connections across multiple hardware devices.

KEMP Technologies manufactures a globally-recognised range of server load balancers and application delivery controllers. The company's solutions ensure high availability of server and application resources, as well as optimisation and scalability of mission-critical applications.

The company's server load balancers are approved by Microsoft for use with MS Exchange, Lync, Sharepoint and Terminal Services. The range comprises both hardware appliances and virtual (software) appliances, which can run on VMware and Hyper-V and can be used for load balancing or any kind of server/application.

KEMP Technologies appointed First Distribution to engage the southern African market and create awareness around the need for server load balancing solution investment and application.

Aside from a general rapid increase in overall traffic volume across company networks, decision-makers have to consider the need for secure connectivity and integration between front and back-end systems on the network, and the strategic importance of reliability, Web-enabled applications, performance and scalability.

"For most companies, especially those involved in e-commerce, server infrastructure that keeps timing out because it cannot cope with the level of visitors, will damage the company's image and result in a loss of business," explains Phil Thersby, KEMP Product Manager at First Distribution.

"A server load balancer solution allows you to plan for handling increased traffic, by ensuring that it is directed to servers that are performing best and have spare capacity based on factors such as concurrent connections and CPU/memory utilisation. If a server or application fails, the user is automatically re-routed to another functioning server," he continues.

The small-to-medium enterprise space is a focal point for the company. Ongoing interaction with this growing segment of the market is an important component of the company's strategy.

A big driver for server load balancing among SMEs is the list of changes Microsoft has made to its core server architecture in Exchange 2010, including the use of Exchange Client Access Server (CAS) to handle client connections.

This makes server load balancing necessary to automatically re-route and reconnect users to optimised servers to avoid poor performance and deliver high availability.

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First Distribution

First Distribution was established in 1984 and has grown to be a broad-based, premium IT distribution company, providing enterprise-ready solutions for the southern African market. First Distribution is a value-added distributor of leading global brands, providing complex ICT solutions to the enterprise and SME markets, focused around the data centre, virtualisation, hosted applications and cloud-based services, database and middleware, security and network infrastructure - backed up by unparalled expertise.

For more information, please visit: www.firstdistribution.co.za.

KEMP Technologies

KEMP Technologies is a leader in affordable server load balancer appliances and application delivery controllers, tailored to meet the needs of businesses that rely on the Internet for e-commerce and business-critical applications. KEMP helps companies rapidly grow their business with 24/7 high-availability, better Web infrastructure performance, scalability and secure operations - while streamlining IT costs. Thousands of KEMP LoadMaster products are in use today to improve customer satisfaction, by accelerating user access to business-critical Web applications. Service providers also rely on KEMP products to enable fast time-to-market and cost-effective operations for new and existing managed services.

KEMP's highly affordable LoadMaster products include Layers 4-7 load balancing, content switching, server persistence, SSL offload/acceleration, and application front-end capabilities (caching, compression, intrusion prevention system), plus one full year of product support - delivering industry leading price/performance value.

Application delivery solutions are known as application delivery controllers (ADC), server load balancers (SLB), application front-end devices (AFE), Web switches, content switches and application switches.

For more information, visit:
www.KEMPtechnologies.com
www.loadbalancerblog.com

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