Barracuda Load Balancer

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IP load balancing and network intrusion prevention

Barracuda Load Balancer

According to industry analysts, fewer than 20% of mission critical Internet applications achieve internal objectives for continuous availability. Challenges include maintaining uptime when servers fail, scaling data center capabilities to handle increased load, and protecting infrastructure from network vulnerabilities.

Designed to help organizations achieve their availability objectives, the Barracuda Load Balancer integrates IP load balancing and network intrusion prevention into an affordable and easy to use appliance. The Barracuda Load Balancer provides comprehensive failover capabilities in case of server failure, distribution of traffic across multiple servers, and integrated protection from network intrusions.

Powerful Enterprise-Class Solution

The Barracuda Load Balancer is designed to provide comprehensive IP load balancing capabilities to any IP-based application, including:

• Internet sites with high traffic requirements, such as Web, FTP, media streaming, and content delivery networks
• Hosted applications using thin-client architectures, like Citrix or Windows Terminal Services
• Other IP services requiring optimal performance, including SMTP, DNS, RADIUS, and TFTP
  

The Barracuda Load Balancer's integrated Service Monitor ensures that servers and their associated applications are operational. In the event of server or application failure, the Barracuda Load Balancer facilitates automatic failover among servers to ensure continuous availability. The Barracuda Load Balancer also assists in orchestrating scheduled maintenance windows on specific servers while maintaining application availability through other servers in the server farm.

To mitigate risks associated with failures of the load balancers themselves, two Barracuda Load Balancers can be deployed in an active/passive configuration. In the event of failure of a primary active Barracuda Load Balancer, the secondary Barracuda Load Balancer will automatically activate and assume the identity of the primary load balancer so as to maintain application availability.

Easy to Use and Maintain

The Barracuda Load Balancer is extremely easy to deploy, featuring automatic discovery and configuration tools through an intuitive Web interface. To minimize ongoing administration associated with security, the Barracuda Load Balancer automatically receives current intrusion prevention and security updates from Barracuda Central, an advanced technology operations center where engineers continuously monitor and mitigate the latest Internet threats.

The Barracuda Load Balancer also facilitates automatic configuration through a Web-based application programming interface (API) and system monitoring through SNMP.

Affordable

While price and complexity have historically restricted some organizations from deploying load balancers, the Barracuda Load Balancer is designed for organizations of all sizes. With no per port or per server license fees, the Barracuda Load Balancer is the most affordable enterprise-grade load balancing solution in its class.

The Barracuda Load Balancer is designed to provide fast and comprehensive IP load balancing capabilities to any IP-based application, including:

• HTTP
• HTTPS (SSL)
• SSH
• SMTP
• IMAP
• RDP (Citrix/Terminal Services)
• POP3
• NNTP
• ASP
• Streaming Media
• DNS
• LDAP
• RADIUS
• TFTP
• Other TCP/UDP based services

Intrusion Prevention System
Many security technologies are integrated into the Barracuda Load Balancer. The set-and-forget, best of breed Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) helps secure your network, even if you miss a patch or if an exploit manages to get past your existing security. In addition to the full Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection provided for all load balanced servers by the built-in IPS, the Barracuda Load Balancers will also automatically block any exploits that are detected across multiple protocols, with no extra configuration required. Exploit signatures are regularly updated at Barracuda Central, and are automatically delivered to your Barracuda Load Balancer via Energize Updates.

Auto-Discovery Mode
All models of the Barracuda Load Balancer support real server service auto-discovery, to ensure quick and easy deployment of new servers. For common services, there's no need to manually configure each port. The Barracuda Load Balancer automatically detects which services are running on a specified server, which saves on deployment and configuration time.

Layer 4 IP Persistence
The Barracuda Load Balancer supports technology that directs clients back to the same server to establish session server persistence. In environments where session persistence is required, Layer 4 IP persistence provides a fast and reliable solution for most configurations including most encrypted e-commerce traffic, database, and Citrix/Terminal Services configurations. The timeout is fully configurable and can be enabled on a service level.

Load Balancer Scheduling Logic
Multiple scheduling technologies are supported by the Barracuda Load Balancer, including server weighting, Weighted Least Connection (WLC), and Weighted Round Robin (WRR).

Automated Service Monitor
A fully integrated service monitor is available on all Barracuda Load Balancers, which allows for easy re-configuration of your servers based on the availability of your upstream and downstream infrastructure components. Downed servers are automatically removed from the farm within seconds of server failure.

Multiple Deployment Modes
The Barracuda Load Balancer supports three different operating modes for the most flexibility of any load balancer on the market. Route-path offers the most flexibility, while bridge-path allows deployment without changes to existing IP infrastructure. Direct Server Return allows up to 10GB throughput, ideal for content delivery networks.

High Availability
High Availability is easy to set up with the Barracuda Load Balancer's Web interface. Simply point the secondary (backup) Barracuda Load Balancer to the primary Load Balancer's management IP address, and the load balancer synchronizes configurations to establish a highly available network that brings your server farm to enterprise grade availability.

Web User Interface
The Barracuda Load Balancer configuration is executed through an intuitive Web user interface. With features such as quick server and service adding, health monitoring, and auto-discovery, the Barracuda Load Balancer is easy to use -- a typical configuration can be performed in less than ten minutes!

The Barracuda Load Balancer supports three different operating modes for the most flexibility of any load balancer on the market. Route-path offers the most flexibility, while bridge-path allows deployment without changes to existing IP infrastructure. Direct Server Return allows up to 10GB throughput, ideal for content delivery networks.

Route-path provides the most flexibility, allowing load balancing of servers that are downstream from the Barracuda Load Balancer. In this configuration, the WAN and LAN interfaces of the Barracuda Load Balancer must be on separate logical networks.

Bridge-path is the simplest deployment to configure. Users may place the Barracuda Load Balancer in line with their existing IP infrastructure, and add load balanced servers as required without changing IP addresses. With this type of deployment, the WAN and LAN interfaces must be on physically separate networks, with the LAN interface on the same logical switch as the servers being load balanced.

Direct Server Return (DSR) provides an optimal throughput configuration, while allowing existing servers to maintain their original IP addresses. With DSR, requests come through the WAN interface of the Barracuda Load Balancer and are handed off directly to the real servers via the WAN port, while the servers respond directly to the request through their own interfaces. This implementation requires the use of a Loopback adapter placed on the load balanced servers.

Deployment Chart:

LB Topology Requirements By Mode

Configuration of the Barracuda Load Balancer is accomplished through a simple Web interface. All you need is a Web browser on a system with network access to the Barracuda Load balancer -- there is no software to install, or any media to lose.

The Web screens are comprehensive, allowing you to configure virtually every part of the system. Administrators can choose to use a "quick add" function that assumes default settings for servers, or they can edit individual real servers/services and manually specify settings for optimal configurations.

The Barracuda Load Balancer's administrative tools feature state-of-the-art statistical reporting tools that give you a visual edge on performance of your highly available network.

The Load Balancer's Health Status feature allows quick and easy access to the health and performance of your configured servers and services.

Visit www.barracudastore.co.uk/balancer-overview.htm for more information

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