[TriLUG] [OT] Content/Load Balancing switches

[Michael Alan Dorman]

On Tue, 9 Jan 2007 01:55:04 -0800 (PST)
Joseph Mack NA3T <jmack at wm7d.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Chris Bullock wrote:
> 
> > We are possibly getting ready to start supporting a vendor 
> > that can use load balancing.  What are the preferred 
> > vendors and models for load balancers?
> 
> How about LVS.
> 
> (disclaimer - I maintain the LVS HOWTO)
> 
> Joe

I'd have to second Joe---I've been running a pair of LVS boxes in a
hot-standby configuration for almost the last two years and have never
had any problems at all, though my configuration isn't particularly
exotic, either.

They're cheap 2Ghz P4s with 512MB, but they're handling several
megabits of traffic with load averages of 0, and I expect them to scale
a much further.  The hardware probably cost less than $2K.

I am at best a talented amateur when it comes to network stuff, so it
did take some time to wrap my head around how things needed to be set
up to support LVS-DR, but once the lightbulb went on, the actual
configuration of the software---I'm using ldirectord and heartbeat---was
simple.

Mike.