If you were to take a glance back 10 to 20 years on the state of your industry, how different would it look from a communications standpoint? Two decades ago, cell phones were starting to find their place in the market, yet mass adoption had yet to emerge. For the mobile professional, access to information on-the-go was more important, but devices were few and far between and access to the network off site was not the seamless experience it is today.
Ensuring optimal communications and access to relevant information when on the go requires a focus on IP transit. This includes load balancing according to the devices and traffic traversing the network. When considering what must be load balanced, a familiarity with OSI 7 layer stack is essential as load balancing tends to take place at Layer 2, Layer 4 and Layer 7. And, as highlighted in this SYS (News - Alert)-CON report, knowing what information you need from your load balancers is equally important.
If an ADSL router is already in place for the residential setting, the benefits of load balancing may already be available. The more robust ADSL routers determine load balancing according to the applications running, as well as the number of users that are currently connected. A number of users can be adequately supported, while the different types of applications are readily identified so as to give priority to VoIP phone calls and content streaming.
Load balancing and IP transit tends to take on greater attention on the commercial side when running a home-based or small business. Even large organizations find load balancing is critical to ensure the optimal performance of the network, supported applications and all users. This is especially true when two or more servers are in place to store and manage business-critical data. Company policy must define that data which is considered critical and then determine where it should be located for optimal use.
When servers are put in the cloud, the cloud service provider must offer load balanced network architecture through IP transit to ensure access to the best performance and complete uptime. A number of providers already offer load balancing as a value-add for their VIP clients, support that is generally outlined in the Service Level Agreement (SLA) and backed by a qualified tech team. Regardless of the approach, load balancers are available at affordable rates to match the desired performance. Only those able to balance diverse content should be considered.
As IP transit remains an important element in the performance and success of an organization, regardless of size, understanding the requirements in load balancing according to traffic and devices is key to the optimal performance of the network. If you do a little digging to understand how content is stored effectively both in-house and in the cloud, you’ll be better prepared for heavier traffic down the road.
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Edited by Rachel Ramsey