WAN Load Balancing
The new IT-enabled world is driven by revolutionary changes powered by advances in technology. The inception of a complete cyber environment necessitates enhanced network connectivity options. Businesses are increasingly reliant on the Internet for critical parts of their business operations. Companies require stable WAN connections to ensure business continuity, which is the backbone of development. In addition, there is a need for increased bandwidth and continuous ‘uptime’ regardless of outages that may occur. Such a scenario delineates the requisite for devices such as WAN load balancer, router, firewall, etc. to improve WAN performance. Large enterprises have multiple points of connection and WAN links to avert disruptions in connectivity. When multiple WAN connections are used, a multi WAN load balance function is employed.
Load balancing is the process of distributing data across a computer network to maximize network efficiency from a link loading perspective. Multi WAN load balance stands for the WAN load balancing functionality among disparate WAN connections. Reliability and redundancy are achieved when load balancing with multiple components. When distributing data over a network by load balancing, it is possible to avert a deluge of data from clogging any single network connection. Multi WAN load balance can help in saving considerable amount of time and also provide stable and redundant WAN connectivity.
Application performance is accelerated when using a WAN load balancer. Providing a single Internet connection from many servers is one of the common applications of WAN load balancing. This functionality is oftentimes called as a server farm. Few of the generally load balanced systems are popular websites, big Internet Relay Chat networks, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) sites with high bandwidth, NNTP servers and DNS servers. A typical WAN load balance mechanism offers the following functions: the load balancing function (wherein requests are distributed among different servers to avoid overloading of a particular server); resilience, where in the event of failure in a server, the requests are redirected to the other servers; scalability, where the addition of more servers improves the overall performance.
WAN load balancing is an advanced managing solution, which when applied with appropriate devices, enables optimal resource utilization, response time or throughput. Load balancing aids in making applications more scalable. WAN Load balancing can be implemented with hardware, software or both. The primary reason behind computer server clustering is a WAN load balance function. Multi WAN load balancing increases the available bandwidth due to its ability to simultaneously use multiple links. It provides load balancing for different ISP and WAN links, which are aggregated, and facilitates fault tolerance for the Wide Area Network through failover. Hence, there is secure Internet connectivity, stable external connection, and dependable quality of transmission.
High availability, i.e. absolute operational continuity, is an important feature in Multi WAN load balancing. This is crucial to companies for ensuring consistent service. A busy or slow WAN leads to frustration and customers have a low quality experience. Major telecommunication companies employ load balancing to avoid network congestion on specific links. A WAN load balancer shifts traffic from one path to another, thereby reducing transit expense across external networks and improving network reliability.
A WAN load balancer makes working on redundant communication links easier. For instance, with Multi WAN load balancing in a company setting, Internet access will be made available even if any one of the connections fail. This improves network connectivity and enables companies to continue without failures. Protection against network outages is critical and companies look to reduce the same. Multi WAN load balance when used with standard technology devices, yield sound results and ensure connectivity at all times.
Several methods are used to perform WAN load balancing. A WAN load balancer employs different methods to select the appropriate server in the server farm and direct access requests. A combination of load balancing methods is used to enhance functionality. Round robin, weighted, least connected, fastest route, mixed, and deterministic are few of the distribution methods. A method that does not necessitate hardware or software is round robin DNS. A far more efficient technology that allows users to control the method of load balancing is technology offered by a leading edge technology provider FatPipe Networks.
FatPipe technology solutions, is widely deployed in many companies that require the highest level of WAN integrity and uptime. FatPipe offers a refined, flexible solution for WAN redundancy and dynamic load balancing of both inbound and outbound data traffic. WAN load balance is achieved with relative ease as FatPipe technology enables dynamic load balancing across multiple lines and substantially increases the efficiency of WANs. This technology is agnostic to both provider and type of dataline.
FatPipe devices constantly monitor the response time of each dataline and intelligently choose which one to send the traffic on. This saves time, and also results in maximum bandwidth utilization. Companies are able to deliver information efficiently through such WAN optimization devices and enhanced features such as WAN load balancing or multi WAN load balancing. The need for high availability WANs requires high-end technology products such as those developed by FatPipe, as information and communication are the keys for survival and a robust WAN infrastructure is the catchword here.
