Web transaction rates and throughput continue to increase exponentially with Internet-driven applications and media-rich communications. In response, customers in all verticals are considering deploying or upgrading server load-balancing technology to handle high-volume network applications. Here are four tips for choosing the right server load-balancing technology for your Web applications.

1. Choose the right platform. In order to address the need for higher online transmission speeds, vendors continue to move their single-CPU software solutions to more powerful multi-CPU load-balancer systems. To future-proof a load-balancer upgrade or investment, determine whether the vendor's platform is optimized for multicore CPU systems. A properly designed multi-CPU system will have maximum per-CPU independence with almost no interference among CPUs, making instructions run faster.

Server load balancers should have high-performance SSL acceleration and other security features to address increasing requirements.

A key benefit of the multicore CPU platform is that the server load balancer performs as desired with numerous features turned on, such as Layer 4, Layer 7, secure socket layer (SSL) and advanced scripting features, which are CPU intensive. The advanced scripting features allow administrators to solve traffic bottlenecks before they occur. A recommended way to test the vendor's platform is to deploy them into the network and test the performance while running the scripting feature to make sure degradation is not significant.

Also, be careful with solutions that are getting most of their Layer 4-7 acceleration functions from hard-wired application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technologies. Getting simple feature requests into the accelerating ASIC requires 18 months or more development time.

2. Acceleration, optimization and security. Server load balancers should have the architecture to accelerate and improve Web application response times. When tuned properly, customers can benefit from Web site and application response times up to 10 times faster.

The solution should have the intelligence to optimize and reduce bandwidth, space and energy requirements. Customers' bandwidth savings can increase while, at the same time, reducing data center space and power requirements by consolidating server resources.

Server load balancers should have high-performance SSL acceleration and other security features to address increasing security requirements for Web-based transactions. Today, some vendors also include advanced security features such as high-performance secure e-mail and antispam in the load-balancing platform. Security features should be included in the base system at no additional cost.

Additional considerations include reliability, availability, ease-of-use and ease-of-migration to lower operating expenses.

3. Price/performance. Do not sacrifice performance for value. Once a budget estimate has been determined, be sure to ask the prospective vendor how much performance will be delivered for the price. Also, request to see independent third-party performance tests, and validate the vendor's claims against the test results. The best test is to install the server load balancer to see how it performs with the organization's applications.

The key tests to evaluate: Layer 4 connections per second (CPS); Layer 7 connections per second (CPS); Layer 7 transactions or requests per second (TPS or RPS); SSL transactions per second (TPS); and maximum throughput.

Ask the vendor if the list price includes all the features, or if there are additional licensing fees. Platform prices may vary regarding performance, features, ports and users.

Lee Chen 4. Vendor assessment. Choose a vendor with networking expertise. Ask for references regarding the vendor's expertise in Layer 2-3 and Layer 4-7 networking.

Finally, choose technologies that can scale with changing business requirements.

Lee Chen is founder and CEO of A10 Networks, San Jose, Calif. Before founding A10, Chen was co-founder of Foundry Networks and Centillion Networks.

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