Leading
a new generation of Web switches, Alteon
WebSystems' ACEdirector products are integrated
services front-ends. Built on an innovative
distributed processing architecture, ACEdirector
products support all Web OS services combining
sophisticated server load balancing and
application redirection techniques with
high performance Ethernet switching and
routing for growing, mission critical server
farms.
High Performance Server Load Balancing
Server load balancing on the ACEdirector
enables virtually unbounded server capacity.
Unlike competing server load balancing products
built around a single, central processor,
the ACEdirector employs two powerful RISC
processors on each of its eight 10/100 Mbps
ports. The ACEdirector can switch Layer-4
sessions at blazing speeds - up to 200,000
sessions can be load-balanced across multiple
servers in a second.
Flexible Groupings
of Applications and Servers
The ACEdirector provides Virtual IP (VIP)
addresses to represent the target servers
and applications - assigning each session
to the most available server associated
with the destination VIP specified in the
session request packet. It monitors each
session from start to finish, providing
full address translation as it forwards
packets between the client and server. VIPs
on the ACEdirector can be administered in
blocks, allowing virtually unlimited numbers
of virtual addresses while making administration
fast, simple and error-free. Up to 2048
applications can be grouped on one VIP,
for servers that run many applications.
Global Server Load
Balancing
Global server load balancing
allows mirrored servers or server farms
to be distributed around the world, enabling
requests to be directed to the best site.
Server switches determine the best site
based on server health, proximity to the
client and server response time. Server
switches automatically exchange this information
with all other server switches. With a global
view of evary site's health and performance,
each server switches develops a list of
the best performing sites. The switches
then direct traffic to sites in proportion
to the sites' performance measurements.
As a result, the best performing sites receive
more connections than others, according
to their ability to handle more connections.
Simple,
Effective Load-Balancing Algorithms
System managers can configure the load-balancing
method - round-robin, least-connections,
hashing or minimum misses. Maximum connection
thresholds and different weightings can
be assigned to servers to avoid overloading
any server. Any server can be designated
as a backup or overflow server for another
server or server group, further insuring
application availability
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FEATURES
- Eight
selectable 10/100 Mpbs Ethernet ports
- One
Gigabit Ethernet uplink (ACEdirector 3
only)
- Load
balances firewalls
- Simultaneous
Lalyer 2, 3,
4-7 switching
- TCP,
UDP and IP load balancing, including HTTP
(persistent and non-persistent), FTP and
passive FTP, SSL, DNS, Radius, Telnet
and NNTP
- Unlimited
number of virtual IP addresses
- Transparent
redirection of any traffic type to up
to 256 servers located anywhere
- Up
to 224 packet filtering rules per switch
- Full
network address translation for multi-site
load balancing and traffic redirection
across routed nets
- Intelligent
health checks to ensure server, application
and content availability
- Load
balancing heuristics: round-robin, least-connections,
hashing and minimum misses with maximum
connection threshold and weighted bias
per server
- Hot-standby
configuration with in-band keep-alives
and configuration updates
- Full-mesh
topologies with no single point of failure
- High-performance
L2 switching, 256 VLANs per port, Jumbo
Frames, 802.1d Spanning Tree
- EtherChannelTM-compatible
trunk groups
- Web-based
user interface and Alteon WebSystems'
SNMP MIB support for configuration and
monitoring
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