Friday, August 27, 2010

BalanceNG - The Software Load-Balancer

BalanceNG is a modern software IP load balancing solution. It is small, fast, and easy to use and setup. It offers session persistence, different distribution methods (Round Robin, Random, Weighted Random, Least Session, Least Bandwidth, Hash, Agent, and Randomized Agent) and a customizable UDP health check agent in source code. BalanceNG - The Software Load Balancer">BalanceNG comes with a Free Basic License: A basic load balancer setup with one virtual server and two targets may be evaluated as long as needed at no charge.

BalanceNG - The Software Load-Balancer

Load balancing software uses multiple hardware devices to spread work around and thereby speed performance. While Linux Virtual Server may be the best-known option for Linux networks, another alternative, BalanceNG, a simple, lightweight utility, may be a better choice for some organizations.
BalanceNG - The Software Load Balancer">BalanceNG (Balance Next Generation) is user-mode load balancing software with its own network stacks that runs over Linux and Solaris. All the work is done by the software; the operating system is used only for accessing the physical network interfaces and TCP/IP functions. It supports many different load balancing methods, including round robin, random, hash, and least resource. The load-balancing service takes around 400KB of disk space and the agent takes around 100KB. You need to run the balancing service on a machine that will act as your virtual server, and a balancing agent on all nodes that are part of the cluster, which are called targets in BalanceNG - The Software Load Balancer">BalanceNG parlance. The software generates minimal network (UDP) traffic. The software can provide load balancing not only for Web servers, but almost any kind of service, including HTTP, FTP, SQL, POP3, IMAP, and SMTP.

BalanceNG is not open source. You can download and use the software for free on one virtual server and two targets, which is enough for a small or home business. If you need more, you can upgrade the basic license so that you can have up to 512 virtual servers and up to 1,024 target servers.