Juggling Might Not Have Changed, But Load-Balancing Has!

I recently completed a report for a long-time client, Kemp Technologies, in the area formerly known as L-B/ADC – i.e. Load-Balancing/Application Delivery Control.

It really hit home, during the testing, just how much this “technology” has changed. For starters, we didn’t ever really talk about the actual technology, other than understanding the underlying architecture/engine and how/why it all works. And that’s the point, because nor does the customer nowadays. Which is a good thing. In days of yore, when knights and dragons mixed company and Load-Balancers were simply big lumps of tin with a finite lifespan, the IT guys needed to understand the capacity of said box, how many could be bolted on and – if they got the sales guy drunk enough – when they’d realistically need a forklift upgrade to the next platform.

You then – as the customer – had to either architect the whole thing yourself, or spend many more $$$ or £££ or €€€ on consultation/services to get it done. And that was fine – at the time. But it was both expensive and limited. Now – as the customer – you simply need to be aware of what data and applications need to be accessed by whom (not even where, per se) and have an approximate idea of what data, apps and users you are going to be adding (or subtracting) in the future, and you just basically plug in – i.e. access a web-based console – and go. Well, it’s not quite that simple, but not far off. And there’s no programming involved, complex rules creation – i.e. extensive training required. So you don’t spend a gazillion bringing a team of SEs up to speed, who then bugger off to another company offering more money, shortly afterwards…

In other words, it’s very much a win-win scenario. In a hybrid cloud/OnPrem world it is all but impossible to know where your data and apps are, so it’s important that you don’t actually need to care about this -)

Anyway, enough bantering – please do download the report and understand what I’m talking about here. No boxes, no “use by dates”, just optimisation – as it was always meant to be.

https://kemptechnologies.com/reviews/broadband-testing-kemp-ax-fabric/

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