Coyotepoint was the first server load balancing device I had ever heard of outside of your basic LSNAT configuration (I think Cisco calls it NAT load-sharing or something, but there is an RFC also).
However, I've never actually seen one in production on any network. Around 1997-8 the Cisco Local Director was the only box I saw, and most people hated them. Then, the F5 Big/IP box became popular (and it still sort of is). A whole bunch of people started entering the market space of SLB and Global Load-Balancing. In the past few years, companies like Arrowpoint and Alteon got bought by Cisco and Nortel. Now you even have places like Akamai doing GLB for places like Yahoo. After I've read the RFC's, and patents like US6185598, US108703, and US6052718, and worked with SLB and GLB for years, I've finally come to a few conclusions: A) The SLB/GLB marketing and focus is silicon snake oil B) Just like the computer security industry, "[it's] like a carnival game, where people throw ducks at balloons, and nothing is as it seems" C) It really depends on *your* environment. Just as there are millions of options for web servers and web programming languages (e.g. .NET, J2EE, Apache+PHP+MySQL, Apache+mod_perl, MS NT4 IIS/ISAPI, WebSphere vs. Weblogic, Zeus, Netscape, Xitami, etc etc), there are millions of options for SLB and GLB (even deciding between the two is impossible). D) Even outside of products and software, you have your own organization. How the coders build web pages. How the HTML is done. Etc. If you don't have any dynamic content. If you are completely dynamic content and everything besides the main page is somewhere under /cgi-bin/. These are all organizational issues that are different with every company. Depending on your setup, a different product may fit your needs differently. E) SLB was grown out of the need for more bandwidth being pushed out to the Internet by machines in the $100 to $5000 price range. These machines at the time were 486's and no ubiquitous Fast or Gigabit Ethernet. For a high-end Unix box with Fast Ethernet, you were looking at $30,000 back then (at least). F) Now, you can buy a Titanium Powerbook with Gigabit Ethernet running Mach+BSD (MacOS X) for like $2000. You can get 2x CPU 1U machines running FreeBSD or Linux capable of pushing >2k pps for under $3000. The need for SLB may have changed over the years due to the hardware catching up to the bandwidth needs. The SLB/GLB market is so confusing, probably "nobody" has it figured out. However, I can recommend one box today that stands above the others, and the only one I'd like to see in any production network. The guys at Radware have made some significant advancements in the way SLB and GLB are done. Their WSD and entire line of products are much better than any of the alternatives, and it is much more versatile for any real production environment. This is just my opinion, but I suggest you fully research the SLB/GLB industry before making your decision. -dre ""Brian Zeitz"" wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... > I hope this is not too far off topic, but has anyone ever used this > companies load balancers or products or have any feedback on it. > > > > http://www.coyotepoint.com > > > > One thing I noticed is that it only has 1 port in, and one out. Is that > not normal? I have used Alteon Before, any feedback would be helpful. Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=38954&t=38953 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
