Re: Load Balancing using the Firewall

[Andrew Yeomans <andrew_yeomans () uk ibm com>]

Diego P. Vásquez B. <dvasquez () marc-harris com> writes:
> We have two internet connections to different ISPs and we are interested
> in implementing load balancing and fault tolerance.  The ISPs themselves
> are reluctant to configure BGP or OSPF routing schemes for load
> balancing on the IP level, so now we're interested in a firewall product
> that will support load balancing and fault tolerance of both the
> firewall boxes as well as internet connection availability of the ISPs.

I'd recommend you look into IBM's eNetwork Dispatcher (formerly known
as Interactive Network Dispatcher, and being bundled into WebSphere) on
http://www.software.ibm.com/enetwork/dispatcher/. This can be combined
with IBM Firewall (on same or different system), and I don't see any
reason why other firewall products should not work either. It works by
redirecting IP packets to the least-loaded processor, so providing
load balancing and fault tolerance.

Also see the HACMP (high availability cluster multi-processing) product
on http://www.rs6000.ibm.com/software/Apps/hacmp/. This can be configured
to reconfigure on failure of processor/adapter/network/etc.

To design the detailed configuration, you will need to consider how
much fault-tolerance you can afford, and where the risks are (e.g. are
there any single points of failure in the final design, incuding the
existing network).

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