In today’s dynamic application landscape, delivering IT infrastructure that’s highly available, performant and secure is paramount for organizations of all sizes. Load balancers help achieve this by distributing client network traffic across multiple servers. They also distribute traffic across geographic locations to minimize downtime and enhance the application experience.
Since 65% of organizations say their cloud environment is multi-cloud, enterprise IT teams and decision-makers are re-evaluating their load-balancing choices more frequently. They need a versatile, secure and cost-efficient solution that aligns with modern deployment needs—one that optimises workflows and minimises downtime to enhance application performance. Understanding the essential role of load balancers, the state of load balancing in modern tech ecosystems and where application delivery sits today gives professionals a holistic perspective from which to make informed choices.
Principal Solution Engineer, Progress.
The changing load balancer landscape
Numerous industry trends and application influences shape how load balancers are used today. Enterprise IT teams and decision-makers are increasingly open to exploring and starting to use load-balancing vendors and solutions. A survey conducted by EMA revealed that 80% of enterprise organizations indicated a willingness to consider switching load-balancing vendors in the next two years.
There are numerous reasons behind the changing demands for applications. The rise of cloud-based applications, micro-service architectures and hybrid cloud deployments have increased the complexity of load-balancing requirements. Many organizations struggle to support this evolving application landscape with their current load balancers, highlighting their need for a solution that offers advanced security, robust analytics and other features that simplify management.
Ongoing support costs for their existing load balancers and additional deployments can be significant, as can adding additional nodes for new applications. This drives organizations to seek out more cost-effective alternatives that will enable them to flexibly scale their load-balancing architecture without considerable spikes in their operational costs.
Benefits of load balancing
Load balancers drive business value in various ways—far beyond enhancing the performance, availability, reliability and redundancy of IT infrastructure to maintain continuous service.
In addition to these critical roles, load balancers can also optimize resource utilization, significantly reducing costs and improving system performance. They facilitate the efficient use of server resources, reducing the risk of underutilization or overloading.
Perhaps a lesser-known but critical benefit—load balancers can enhance security by controlling traffic in a way that mitigates the risk of DDoS attacks. They can detect and block malicious traffic, helping to protect the network from potential threats. They can also play a crucial part in disaster recovery strategies by redirecting traffic to backup servers in case of a failure. This capability maintains business continuity and minimizes downtime.
Load balancing also allows organizations to easily add or remove servers based on traffic demands. This flexibility supports seamless scalability, accommodating growing user bases without service disruptions.
Considerations for choosing a load-balancing platform
When evaluating load-balancing platforms, it’s vital to find one that can flex as organizational needs change in scale and complexity. A platform offering customer-focused support and rich online resources will help an organization of any size get the maximum benefit from deployments.
It's also worth checking out the vendor’s development history. For instance, research how the vendor has been investing back in product R&D and how quickly they address bugs. Some vendors can even provide an estimate on ROI. Finally, it’s critical that licensing isn’t only Perpetual and offers flexibility that can scale to the business’s needs.
Some fundamental features to look for in a solution include:
Core load balancing: Core load-balancing functionality that’s table stakes for modern organizations includes on-premises, cloud and hybrid application deployments. It's better still to find one that offers a Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) feature that can be used across multiple data centers, cloud providers and regions.
Cybersecurity functionality: Layered cybersecurity functionality can provide an additional security boost to an organization's existing cybersecurity practices. These include a Web Application Firewall (WAF), Edge Security Pack (ESP) including Reverse Proxy, End Point Authentication, Active Directory integration, RADIUS authentication, Single Sign On (SSO) across virtual services, RSA SecurID dual factor authentication and Persistent Logging and Reporting.
Adaptable deployment options: Load balancers can be deployed in different infrastructure setups, including dedicated hardware, virtual machines or cloud platforms, like Azure and AWS.
Flexible and competitive pricing: Specifiers should be able to choose the licensing model that fits their business needs. These include Perpetual, Subscription, Pay-as-You-Go (PAYG) and Pooled. With the right choice, organisations can achieve significant cost savings for deployment and reduce ongoing support costs.
Prioritizing security and efficiency
The load balancer landscape continues to evolve in anticipation of upcoming industry trends and influences. Therefore, a versatile, secure and efficient load-balancing solution is essential for enterprise businesses.
For organizations to optimize their current load-balancing capabilities for the best application experience, there must be in alignment with modern deployment needs, improved functionality, flexible licensing and lower cost of ownership, plus industry-leading support and online resources.
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