Why You Should Choose a Software-Based Load Balancer Rick Nelson Nginx, Inc.

About this webinar The world is moving to software-based approaches and away from using proprietary and static hardware. This has been driven first by server virtualization and more recently by cloud computing. This is occurring up and down the IT stack, and this includes the Application Delivery Controller or load balancing layer.

INTRODUCTION

The Future is Software •  Server  Virtualiza-on   •  Cloud  Compu-ng   •  So5ware  Switches   •  So5ware  Routers   •  So5ware  Firewalls   •  So5ware  Load  Balancers    

DIFFERENT TYPES OF LOAD BALANCERS

Different Types of Load Balancers Hardware Load Balancers Proprietary  Hardware   Proprietary  Opera-ng  System   VS  1   VS  2   VS  3   VS  4   VS  5   Load  Balancing  So5ware   A  Virtual  Server  (VS)  is  the  configura-on  and   resources  needed  to  load-­‐balance  an  applica-on.  

Different Types of Load Balancers Virtualized Load Balancers LB  So5   Proprietary/Commodity  Hypervisor   Proprietary  Hardware   LB  So5   LB  So5   LB  So5   LB  So5   Prop  OS   Prop  OS   Prop  OS   Prop  OS   Prop  OS   VS  1   VS  2   VS  3   VS  4   VS  5  

Different Types of Load Balancers Virtual Appliance Load Balancers LB  So5   VMware   Commodity  Hardware   LB  So5   LB  So5   LB  So5   LB  So5   Prop  OS   Prop  OS   Prop  OS   Prop  OS   Prop  OS   VS  1   VS  2   VS  3   VS  4   VS  5  

Different Types of Load Balancers Software Load Balancers Commodity  Hardware   Linux   NGINX  Plus   NGINX+   VMware   Commodity  Hardware   NGINX+   NGINX+   NGINX+   NGINX+   Linux   Linux   Linux   Linux   Linux   VS  1   VS  2   VS  3   VS  4   VS  5   VS  1   VS  2   VS  3   VS  4   VS  5  

What is a Software-Based Load Balancer •  Runs  on  generic  hardware/virtualiza-on   •  Available  as  a  so5ware  installa-on   •  Virtual  load  balancer  ≠  so5ware  load  balancer      

WHY CHOOSE A SOFTWARE LOAD BALANCER

Why Software-Based Load Balancing? Flexibility      

Run Anywhere •  Commodity  hardware   •  Hypervisor   •  Containers   •  Cloud   •  The  same  so5ware  everywhere      

Right Sizing •  Buy  for  what  you  need  now      

Buying a Hardware Load Balancer 0   5   10   15   20   0   1   2   3   4   5   Throughput   Years  

Buying a Hardware Load Balancer 0   5   10   15   20   0   1   2   3   4   5   Throughput   Years  

Buy for what you need now 0   5   10   15   20   0   1   2   3   4   5   Throughput   Years   N N N N N N

Right Sizing •  Buy  for  what  you  need  now   •  Buy  hardware  that  matches  your  needs      

Throughput vs. Features 0   2   4   6   8   10   12   L4  Load  Balancing   SSL  Bulk  Encryp-on   Compression   L7  Scrip-ng,  WAF   Hardware  Load  Balancer  

Right Sizing •  Buy  for  what  you  need  now   •  Buy  hardware  that  matches  your  needs   •  Elas-city      

Elasticity 0   5   10   15   20   Jul   Aug   Sep   Oct   Nov   Dec   Jan   Feb   Mar   Apr   May   Jun   Throughput   N N N N N N N N N

Deployment Flexibility •  Rapid  deployment   •  Bare  metal,  VM,  container,  exis-ng  server   •  So5ware  is  DevOps  friendly      

Deploying a Hardware Load Balancer Place  the  order  $$$   Wait  …   Take  delivery   Install  &  configure  

Deploying a Software Load Balancer on Hardware Place  the  order  $$   Get  a  server  from  inventory   Download  the  so5ware   Install  &  configure   Internet

Multi-Tenancy •  True  mul--­‐tenancy  is  hard   •  You  can’t  get  true  isola-on  –  noisy  neighbor   •  Leads  to  feature  restric-ons   •  Size  for  max  load  –  under  commit  resources        

Multi-Tenancy Hardware  LB   App  1   App  2   App  3   App  4   App  5   App  6   App  7   App  8  

A Better Multi-Tenancy •  Mul--­‐tenant  using  mul--­‐instance   •  Isola-on   •  Full  feature  availability   •  Size  for  each  applica-on      

Multi-Instance App  1   App  2   App  3   App  4   App  5   App  6   App  7   App  8   N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N

New Hardware Technologies •  Latest  chipsets   •  New  chip  architectures  (Atom,  ARM)      

Objections •  You  can’t  get  performance  out  of  so5ware   – The  H/W  ADC  has  an  SSL  accelerator  card   – The  H/W  ADC  has  dedicated  network  ASICs   •  You  really  can  get  performance  out  of   so5ware      

What is NGINX? Internet N Web Server Serve content from disk Application Server FastCGI, uWSGI, Passenger… Proxy Caching, Load Balancing… HTTP traffic þ Application Acceleration þ SSL and SPDY termination þ Performance Monitoring þ High Availability Advanced Features: þ Bandwidth Management þ Content-based Routing þ Request Manipulation þ Response Rewriting þ Authentication þ Video Delivery þ Mail Proxy þ GeoLocation

Summary •  What  you  need   •  Where  you  need  it   •  When  you  need  it       A software load balancer lets you deploy:

Questions and Answers

Closing Thoughts •  40%  of  the  busiest  websites  use  NGINX   •  Check  out  the  previous  webinar  on  tuning  at   nginx.com   •  Future  webinars:  nginx.com/webinars   •  Blogs:  nginx.com/blog   Try  NGINX  F/OSS  (nginx.org)  or  NGINX  Plus  (nginx.com)