NC1801

PRODUCTREVIEW
Enterprise AWS MAX
from
Loadbalancer.org
PRODUCT REVIEW
PRODUCT
REVIEWPRODUCT RE
It was once the case that by over specifying
a resource, for example network or server
capacity, you would assure an adequate
range of responses for a service, but this
arrangement did nothing to help resilience or
the management challenge. Digital
transformation emphasises the critical
importance of application high availability,
including web services, databases and phone
systems. Reliably provisioning these services
for organisational demands is a critical and
important task.
We have reviewed hardware Application
Delivery Controllers (ADC) from
Loadbalancer.org before and always rated
them highly. We are now reviewing the
Enterprise AWS MAX cloud based ADC. As
you can intuit, this is an Amazon AWS cloud
appliance which seamlessly combines with
native AWS capability, creating a powerful
and flexible cloud based ADC.
Appliance deployment requires advance
capacity decisions, but this solution can be
adjusted as you go, paying for what you use:
ideal, for example, for peak retail events on a
Web Server. Existing customers are looked
after and can redeploy their Appliance
licenses to the cloud.
Logging into an AWS account we set up a
subnet, IAM role, permissions and IP
addresses from the main console. Using
Cloud Formation Templates we configured
the remaining infrastructure: we could have
imported user data from an existing
configuration if required.
Although AWS provides its own resilience,
Enterprise AWS MAX offers High Availability
(HA) pairs so a Slave can automatically and
seamlessly assume load balancing duties in
the event of Master failure. Setting this up was
easy - enable root access, enter the slave
address, set the HA configuration and add
the private AWS instance address. For the
majority of services session data is
maintained, so customers that are ready to
checkout continue unaffected.
Next, we set up Auto Scaling which
automatically (based on load conditions or
times) adds or removes server capacity.
Enterprise AWS MAX takes the native AWS
Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) onto the next
stage and was easy to configure using
AWS familiarity.
Using the System Overview screen we
reviewed the status of our scaled servers and
always had a clear understanding of
available capacity, with graphs showing
network bandwidth, system load average and
memory usage. The Service Connections
graph provided detailed Layer-7 statistics over
a variety of time intervals. All available data
can be exported using SNMP.
Native reporting provides lots of graphs
offering, for example, detail about
connections and HA Proxy. Detailed logs
provide in-depth insight into activity by user,
Auto Scaling and WAF, showing what has
been blocked.
With our HA configuration complete we
forced a failover and observed the Slave
engage, which can take up to 30 seconds
using ELB - less if using private IP addressing.
From here Enterprise AWS MAX ran its own
Health Check, polling servers, checking
negotiation, IIS and RADIUS. Using an
external script other specific checks can be
added. ACL rules can be managed and alerts
sent as failure occurs. WAF allows manual
configuration or preconfigured lists can help
with, for example, PCI compliance.
Security is layered around Enterprise AWS
MAX by AWS, but it does not rely on this. If
desired, certificates can be changed and Lock
Down used to stop everything should
nefarious activity be suspected. It supports
SSL offloading and termination to help server
performance. Email notification for updates
as and when they are released allows choice
regarding application, and in an HA pair this
can be done one side at a time.
If your organisation relies on the high
availability of server based resources, then you
will need ADC services. With the network
perimeter moving towards the cloud and
constantly morphing, cloud based ADC makes
incredible sense, and Enterprise AWS MAX
offers great functionality, price, performance
and customer-centric support. NC
Product: Enterprise AWS MAX
Supplier: Loadbalancer.org
Telephone: 0330 380 1064
Web site: www.loadbalancer.org
Email: sales@loadbalancer.org
Price: Starts from $0.55/hr
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