DNS Based Load Balancers

Tue Jul 4 11:44:07 UTC 2006

Matt,

A few quick questions for you, if you got the time to answer it would be
appreciated (questions inline):

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu] On Behalf Of
> Matt Ghali
> Sent: 04 July 2006 07:21
> To: Patrick W. Gilmore
> Cc: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: Re: DNS Based Load Balancers
> 
> 
> On Sun, 2 Jul 2006, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
> 
> > Would you mind giving us a little more to go on than "the love of
> > god" before making strategic architectural decisions?
> >
> > Just in case we like to decide things for ourselves. :)
> 
> Patrick, I am sorry if I have hit a nerve with you- it seems you've
> got a vested interest in the answer to this question, and I
> appreciate your position.
> 
> > For instance, was F5's implementation flawed, or do you have a reason to
> > dislike the basic idea?  And why?
> 
> For the record, what I _should_ have advised the OP was "for the
> love of god, don't try to do this yourself with an appliance." I
> wholeheartedly encourage him to give his local Akamai sales rep a
> call. I am sorry for the confusion and angst my brevity has caused.

We work with a couple of different technologies here - our own GSS's, cache
farms and also external CDNs (for overflow). This is currently and area that
is currently under evaluation for a quite significant expansion.

Are you able to give some kind of description as to the problems you
experienced whilst using your own appliances? It would be very useful to be
able to avoid making the same mistakes.

Sam