LoadMaster

Kommentare: We improved outlook performance and stability for the end users, during daily business but also reduce service interruptions during maintenance windows. The load master is built as a virtual appliance and we set it up in a cluster, so that it is fully redundant. We are looking into using it also to balance other applications, which Kemp can do as well.

Vorteile: KEMP have a partnership with Microsoft in order to load balance Exchange which was a great plus for us while selecting the right product since we wanted mainly to loadbalance Exchange for the Outlook client in order to minimize interruptions during maintenance windows or simply to balance connections. The great thing is also that the virtual appliance allows you to load balance your application but without the need of adding hardware to your datacenter. this is a great approach and the technology has proven to work as expected without issues.

Nachteile: There is a well written administration guide which needs to read extensively before setting up services. This is not a product where complexity is taking away from the administrator. Lots of options, sometimes a matter of try and retry before all works. UI could be improved.

Kommentare: I started using the LoadMaster to replace a Microsoft WAP solution that was publishing Exchange OWA and Lync to the Internet clients. Soon it was replacing other load balancer solutions we were using internally. We also have a lot of network devices using static IP configuration and when we changed our domain controllers, we had to re-configure them all manually, one by one. With LoadMaster, the solution was as simple as creating new virtual DNS services pointing to the new DCs.

Vorteile: The software is quite easy to setup and configure, thanks to the large number of available templates to download. For more complex situations, Kemp Support Team is there and they're really fast and good at what they do. The free version runs almost all the features of the product and it can be used permanently in a test environment or even in production if there is no need for a large bandwidth. It's also possible to have several interfaces in different networks, so one box can be used in different network segments, keeping the traffic isolated. Working with the LoadMaster is pretty much set it and forget it: once configured, it just runs with no problems.

Nachteile: It doesn't run well in Hyper-V or at least it didn't when I bought it last year. I really don't like the way logs are presented in the software. A lot of the information in the logs is only meaningful to Kemp Support Team.

Kommentare: My overall experience has been excellent, our company has been able to move away from Microsoft NLB pretty seamlessly and the support engineers have worked with us to help implement our solution which is less than basic. A functional yet affordable product and also great staff.

Vorteile: The LoadMaster is easy to implement in a resilient virtual environment. The documentation knowledge base online is very helpful even for advanced deployments. But overall I am most impressed with the level of support, I am always speaking to a knowledgeable engineer who knows how to resolve any issues I encounter. And even if they don't they will continue working with me until we reach a solution together.

Nachteile: The web UI can be slightly clunky, sometimes you have to manually refresh and even reboot the device specifically when using HA. But if you stick to Chrome the experience it's generally a lot better than other browsers.

Vorteile: We started using Kemp Load Balancers in our VMWare environment. Initially for a specific use cae, we have now expanded to use them for load balancing for all systems requiring load Balancing. The things that stand out are: - Ease of Deployment
- Ease of Upgrade
- Quality and responsiveness of the technical support team
- Ease of license maintenance
- Continual improvement of the product With addition of cloud services, we will use Kemp there too as this will maintain a consistent experience across platforms.

Nachteile: No 'Save Changes' button. It's too easy to make a change and click 'back' without the intention of actually saving the change. This means that if an admin was reviewing a setup and inadvertently changed a setting, when they click back, the change is implemented even though that may not have been their intention. Providing a 'save' prompt would prevent this.

Vorteile: The LoadMaster is easy to setup, it is almost impossible to make a mistake. And when we have questions we usually get a response within a couple of hours. Very good support.

Nachteile: They need to work a bit more on the user interface when you have many SSL certificates. The list is unclear, and that bit of the GUI just doesn't work too well. I understand most use cases have only one or two certificates, we have over 30 per virtual host. But they should be able to work on that.