FINAL WORD
Ensuring reliable network connectivity with high availability load balancing
As enterprises become further dependent on the Internet to get business done , the threat of downtime can become a competitive disadvantage . Direct financial losses are substantial and a primary reason why businesses need to establish a high availability solution . Adil Baghir , Technology Consultant Lead , Middle East and Africa at A10 Networks explains why a high availability solution is critical .
The load balancer market is expected to grow to US $ 5 billion
by 2023 and trends such as mobile broadband , multi-cloud and hybrid cloud , virtualisation , remote working and bring your own device ( BYOD ) have helped to fuel this growth .
The result is that tremendous pressure is being placed on IT departments to ensure high availability for mission-critical applications such as ERP , communication and collaboration systems and virtual desktop infrastructure ( VDI ).
The need for high availability
High availability , which is the ability of a system or system component to be continuously operational for a desirably long period of time , can help IT departments implement an architecture that uses redundancy and fault tolerance to enable continuous operation and fast Disaster Recovery . This is true for every element of the data centre from high availability for applications to high availability for the load balancer or application delivery controller ( ADC ) that manages network traffic within and across the data centres in an environment .
High availability begins with identifying and eliminating single points of failure in the infrastructure that might trigger a service interruption-for example , by deploying redundant components to provide fault tolerance in the event that one of the devices fails . Load balancing , whether provided through a standalone device or as a feature of an ADC , facilitates this process by performing health checks on servers , detecting potential failures and redirecting traffic as needed to ensure uninterrupted service .
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