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What is the peferred technology to loadbalance?

MicJameson
Level 1
Level 1

Hello gods of tech.

One can configure load-balancing within switches, routers, firewalls, and specific load-balancing hardware such as F5 brand devices.

Is the reason most deployments use specific load-balancers because of the administrative ease of using a specialized device with simple GUIs?

Or, do well constructed networks configure load balancing in switches and routers in addition to the use of load-balancers?

Do most specific load balancing devices also incorporate QoS?

Thank you!

2 Replies 2

rais
Level 7
Level 7

Load-balancing at different layers of network is different. On switches its L2 traffic load-balancing, on routers it's packet or application-flow load-balancing and at higher layers it's application/server load-balancing e.g. serving clients of cisco.com using multiple servers using a specialized load-balancer. 

Joseph W. Doherty
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

"Is the reason most deployments use specific load-balancers because of the administrative ease of using a specialized device with simple GUIs?"

Unsure I would agree "most deployments use specific load-balancers" because I've often seen Etherchannel or ECMP L3 being used.  That aside, I would suspect something like a specialized device, with a simple GUI, would more likely to be used for its load balancing capabilities over just the fact that it has a simple GUI.

"Or, do well constructed networks configure load balancing in switches and routers in addition to the use of load-balancers?"

From my prior question's response, yes I believe switches and routers load balancing are used in addition to specialized load balancer or perhaps even in lieu of them or even without them.  The major difference between a switch/router vs. a specialized load balancer (which generally does not go unnoticed) is switches and routers LB is "free" while a dedicated/specialized LB device is $$$.

"Do most specific load balancing devices also incorporate QoS?"

That I don't know, although I would expect some, if not all, would support some QoS, but QoS features can vary widely - there's no standard what "incorporating QoS" guarantees.