The core offering from Elfiq, the Link Load Balancer appliances (LBs) enable the organization to combine and balance their network WAN traffic across two or more ISPs or private WAN connections. Key features of the appliances revolve around their operation at network Layer 2, which enables them to be dropped transparently into the network without requiring configuration changes to the existing LAN gear. The LBs are themselves typically deployed between the organization's firewall and router to the provider(s); with Ethernet connections to the LAN and to the provider routers. The vendor notes that the LBs accomplish their goals without using BGP and without requiring Autonomous System Numbers.

Management of the appliances is via an SSH-accessible CLI or a Windows-based GUI. Read-only statistics are also available via SNMP, and an XML-based API facilitates programmatic management from custom applications.

Features available to all models of the LBs include support for balancing of both inbound and outbound traffic (with multiple balancing algorithms supported); a universal power supply (connecting to differing power sources requires only a different power cable); and the vendor's Intelligent DNS Module (IDNS), which provides the ability to intercept inbound DNS requests and respond with the appropriate IP address (and therefore the appropriate WAN link) based on the designated load balancing algorithms as specified by the administrators for the links. IDNS is the process that allows external accesses to resources within the network to themselves be load balanced across the multiple provider links (presuming that each link itself has static IP addresses assigned from the respective provider).

Other features of the gear are dependent on the LB model chosen, and include:

- Intelligent Service Verificator (ISV), which works in combination with IDNS. ISV provides the ability to modify the IDNS responses to external address requests based on the actual availability of internal network services; such as multiple mirrored Web servers. ISV can test the local resources based on Layer 4 (connection only) or Layer 7 (actual service request and analysis of response) methodologies. ISV is available on all but the low-end LB-550E.

- SitePathMTPX, which allows for the balancing of primary-path point-to-point communications across providers (such as VPN/VoIP) without requiring configuration changes to firewalls or VPNs. (But an LB is required at both sites.) The LBs from both sites themselves exchange information regarding the bandwidth performance of the primary and alternate paths, enabling the dynamic redirection of communications to the fastest path without requiring renegotiation of VPN or VoIP connections. SitePathMTPX is also available for all but the low-end LB model

- Geographic Balancing, which enables traffic balancing across geographically separated sites. Some form of Geographic Balancing is available on all but the new tabletop versions of the LBs.

The LB models themselves are offered in 6 models; ranging from the new tabletop format LB-550E and LB-1100E, with support for 2 and 4 provider links, respectively; through to the top-of-the-line 1U LB-4000E, which includes ten 10/100/1000 ports and two fiber ports and supports balancing across up to 320 links.

The 1U Elfiq Load Balancers are available now; the new tabletop models are expected to begin shipping this week.

Visit the Elfiq Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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