LoadMaster

Kommentare: Our high load solutions are very scalable; enabling HTTP/2 was literally checking a single checkbox.

Vorteile: The KEMP load balancers just work. For our purpose where we have about 25.000 concurrent users working on various web applications, it's a simple and easy solution that makes the entire application much more scalable.

Nachteile: The KEMP has a built in feature to do caching. I would like to be able to specify exactly which file types I want to specify; KEMP has it the other way around where you can specify certain things NOT to cache. Also, the way to temporarily disable real servers is a bit weird; you can disable a real server, but the system will keep sending existing users to that server, yet it won't show in the statistics how much traffic is going to the server.

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.

Kommentare: Took only a few hours to set up and now it just runs and we forget about it!

Vorteile: The virtual load balancer was inexpensive and very easy to install and create/use but the technical support is excellent! I emailed a setup question in for the free trial load balancer and received a answer within an hour! I was then asked to do a remote session so they could check what I had done so far and also offered the help finish the setup! I elected to finish on my own to learn the software and the support tech would email me asking for updates and if I needed any additional help all the way through the trial and licensing of the complete software!
This level of support has not been seen in years, please keep it up!

Nachteile: So far have not been able to find a single con.