On demand

FST spoke with Lee Chen to discuss how server load balancers can be deployed to scale financial applications on demand and provide a ‘green’ solution for increasing the efficiency of the data center.

FST. Can you describe the drivers for web application delivery on demand?
LC. Few will dispute that internet traffic continues to increase exponentially.  There are several drivers for the uptake of web traffic. These include the need for ‘green’ initiatives to reduce the number of old legacy devices with high performance devices, while faster internet access speeds such as 3G, Wimax and 4G will drive more transaction-intensive and bandwidth-intensive applications.

Specifically for the finance market, bandwidth-intensive applications need high throughputs. Portals and online transactions need high Layer 4/Layer 7 transactions per second, large session capacities and high SSL performance. All financial web application delivery services require very high uptimes and fault tolerance. Customers must fulfill all these needs while at the same time reducing the total cost of ownership and meeting tight power and space requirements.

FST. How does A10 Networks define Web Application Delivery on Demand?
LC. To fulfill the web application delivery demands, customers up to now have had two choices: chassis-based systems or multiple pairs of redundant stackable load balancers. With chassis-based systems, customers incur the higher upfront costs of electricity, space and equipment today for tomorrow’s bandwidth expansion. With multiple pairs of redundant stackable load balancers, there are significant management costs and challenges for increasing numbers of devices.

A10 have developed a new feature called ‘VirtualN’, an innovative web application delivery on demand solution to address these issues. VirtualN allows users to add A10’s AX Series Advanced Traffic Manager devices on demand to meet growing performance and throughput requirements. With VirtualN, users can add or remove devices based on the internet traffic requirements without incurring the upfront costs.

FST. How does VirtualN work? What are the benefits?
LC. VirtualN is a revolutionary new patent-pending feature within A10’s AX Series family of next-generation server load balancers. With VirtualN, multiple AX Series devices act as a single Virtual Load Balancer. Customers can start with as few as two AX Series devices in a VirtualN configuration and add more devices as their application demands grow. A total of eight AX’s can be used in the VirtualN solution. Customers can provision a single Virtual IP (VIP) across multiple devices, or multiple VIPs across multiple devices. The VirtualN devices automatically distribute the load among themselves to provide extremely high performance and resiliency. VirtualN is one of the key features in A10’s Network Virtualization initiative and it is a ‘scale up’ Network Virtualization strategy. In addition, we have plans to have ‘scale down’ Network Virtualization that allow a single AX device to have multiple virtual server load balancers in it.

The advantages are that all aspects of performance scale linearly with the addition of more AX devices. VirtualN scales throughput and performance for all applications. High availability is achieved by using two or more device and if any VirtualN device fails or is offline for maintenance, the traffic will transfer seamlessly to the remaining devices. Customers have a great deal of flexibility in choosing topologies, networking modes and features and devices are managed centrally instead of having to manage each server load balancer individually.

FST. How does VirtualN compare with competing solutions on the market today?
LC. The Tolly Group recently conducted an independent third party test on our Virtual4 configuration, which includes four AX server load balancer devices in a VirtualN configuration. The test proved that Virtual4 delivers the following benefits over the incumbent’s recently announced chassis-based system: Layer 4 connections per second nearly two times faster, Layer 7 transactions per second over 20 percent faster, SSL transactions per second over two times faster, throughput up to 10 percent greater, half the price, and less power and space requirements. The strength of VirtualN is to allow users to add devices based on users’ performance requirements. A10’s VirtualN is the most ‘green’ high-performance server load balancing solution in the entire industry and a leading initiative for increasing the efficiency of the data center.

Lee Chen is a recognized pioneer in the Layer 4-7 networking industry. Prior to founding A10, Chen co-founded Foundry Networks and Centillion Networks and at A10 he has assembled an expert technology team to produce the next generation of networking and security equipment.