Customer Reviews

Load Balancing Servers, Firewalls, and Caches

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a very well written and nicely organised introduction to server load balancing. The author describes the basics of load balancing, including NAT, session persistence, and network architectures. A discussion on application-layer parsing was quite good. There is also a chapter on global server load balancing (including incorporating load-balancing into the authoritative DNS server) which I found to be very detailed and interesting.

Much of the book is centered on how to load balance TCP (and to a lesser extent UDP), and the author uses HTTP and FTP as his primary driving examples. Throughout the book, the author provides some insight regarding what approaches real companies use (e.g. "this method is what Foundry and Cisco uses."), which I liked very much. Also, the illustrations were plentiful (although a bit primitive-looking).

There are only a few negatives about this book. The english writing is a bit stilted at times, and the chapters on firewalls and caches were basically rehashes of earlier chapters. Finally, I was hoping the author would have provided more detail on the load-distribution heuristics (which server to choose) with more metrics and actual real-world results.

I found the book to be extremely well organised. You will not get lost while reading this book, but you will need a university-level understanding of TCP/IP (and probably the link layer as well to get the NAT material) and networks in general to fully appreciate the matieral. Overall, a great book.

I am fairly new to load balancing, and this book provided an almost perfect introduction to the topic.

From a technical writing point-of-view, this is probably one of the best written books I have ever come across. The chapters are well organzied and are fairly easy to follow. Complex topics are clearly explained. The use of diagrams is very good as well.

If you want to learn more about load balancing, buy this book.

Compared with Tony Bourke's book, this one depicts more on technical details such as how packets flow, how health check is done and etc.. On the other hand, Bourke's book mentions more about the basic concept and the introduction to current available products.

If you are interested in how load balancers are designed, this is the right book for you. However, if you are just shopping around and only want to know what load balancers are, get Brouke's one.

Btw, I was a bit disappointed at chapter 9. I expected to see more opinions on the future development of load balancers but it was not mentioned too much.

Comprehensive and clear at the same time. Tells you what you need
to understand the issues, but no more (like "back to basics" ...)
An absolute must if you need to choose some solution for load balancing
in the jungle of vendors' marketing hype.
This book will allow you to understand what you need and what you should avoid depending on your problem.
Congratulations, Chandra, great job

The book is very clear and helpful with details and pictures.
If you wnat to understand more on Load Balancing I think the book is the right pick (at least intermediate users).
Maybe more examples of different brands of load balancers (Cisco, F5 etc.) would have been appreciated.
Overall I liked it very much.

The author explains vendor independent concepts of load balancers and discusses their (dis)advantages.

He is dividing them into four major applications:

* Server Load Balancing (63p)
* Global Server Load Balancing (19p)
* Firewall Load Balancing and (15p)
* Transparent cache Switching (8p)

additions:

* application examples (4p)
* future outlook (2p)

What makes the book so enjoyable to read is the authors love to the details. The story just flows very smooth.

Especially the thorough explanation, screenshots and technical details deserve the mark "distinction" (Very good). While I read the book it was like puzzle peaces suddenly falling all together to show me the bigger picture.

I did like the follow up of technical issues like session persistency (server affinity), URL switching, system design vs. functionality considerations and the limitations that come with the chosen solutions. The described issues are exactly those that system designers will face in real life and it doesnt stop there of course. The book is laying a good groundwork for development of advanced concepts.

The part of the book that I enjoyed most was the chapter about firewall solution concepts. As the author points out correctly the traffic flow in both directions must be managed. This is also why the setup from a redundant firewall to a load balanced redundant firewall must justify multiple complex issues.

In this case the author went through the analysis of the traffic flow, a stateful vs. stateless discussion, a layer2 vs. layer3 discussion, proxy firewalls, synchronized firewalls, multizone firewalls, VPN load balancing, active-active vs. active-standby discussion and the interaction between routers, load balancers and firewalls. While some topics could only be scratched on the surface the concepts and ideas behind it are explained very clear.

There is no doubt for me that a 2nd edition can easily just pickup where this edition left off. The author clearly shows that there are more scenarios to be discovered and discussed.

On the one side I would love to see a updated 2nd edition from the same author, on the other side I guess it's been held back to keep the competitions products in a distance ;-)

Also the book was published 6+ years ago I felt that the concepts did not loose any of its value. Which leads me to the point that this must have been " THE Technical Book of the Year 2002"

This book still receives well deserved full marks.

Bravo !!

With his background in server products and networking products, this author is uniquely qualified with the product experience to present these topics.

From the simple beginnings of DNS server load balancing Kopparapu explains the driving forces behind and solutions presented to load balancing. The majority of the book is an introduction to the concepts and solutions available for server load balancing suitable for everyone from business casual to advanced technical users.

In addition to detailed explanations, the author demonstrates load balancing techniques through a number of illustrations. The illustrations are detailed enough to explain the concepts, but occasionally lack enough practical detail to go out and bulid in a lab or on a network without further understanding.

In combination with a good manual from a load balancing product, any reader would have enough information to implement sophisticated load balancing configurations.

In addition to server load balancing, the text covers caching techniques available through the use of some layer 4-7 devices. Of all the topics this one is the least detailed in the text. The author understandably covers only that part of cache technology related to layer 4-7 devices. A great deal of the technology required to put together an entire cache system resides in other parts of the system outside of the scope of this book. The implications for the architecture of a network are far reaching and worthy of at one more dedicated book on the topic.

Finally, the author presents the topic of firewall load balancing. Like caching, this is a complex topic. A complete understanding of network security and firewalls would require at least a few other books.

For those that already understand caches or firewalls though, this book provides detailed information on how to scale those systems with layer 4-7 technology.

This is certainly the most comprehensive and easy to read text on the topic. Anyone who reads this will also look forward to future texts from the author on emergning challenges in layer 4-7 network security and streaming content and distribution.

Author did a good job of explaining basic concepts of NAT, Firewalls, Load Balancer, Proxy Servers, Web servers.

Another aspect of this book is that, clear explanation of network equipment deployment issues, how it is being used.

Finally, the advanced topic sections relating to each network element describes the concepts very clearly and by not getting into details of protocol message strucutures.

if you are new to load balancing, get this book. Clear concept explanation, with diagrams. Highly recommend.

Excellent guide for finding ways to balance the loads caused by the huge amount of web traffic straining all our servers!