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HDI Service Management 2010 Conference & Expo
October 6-8, Miami

IT service and technical support professionals gather at the annual HDI Service Management Conference & Expo to explore some of the hottest topics affecting IT service management. The half-day conference workshops provide the processes, frameworks, templates, and tools to help you meet the service demands of your business..

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Load Balancers

needs vs. wants
Basic Features to Look For:
  • SSL support
  • Easy configuration and management
  • Redundancy

  • Nice to Have If You Can Afford Them:

  • Layer 7 switching
  • Secure remote access
  • Caching
  • With a hardware appliance--depending on the number of servers you're load balancing--consider whether the load balancer can also take the place of an edge switch. Foundry Networks' load balancers, for instance, provide additional ports you can use for edge switching, so you don't need a separate switch. That's not the case with Coyote Point Systems' and NetScaler's load balancers, which have a limited number of ports (usually one for management, one for LAN connectivity and one for WAN connectivity), so you need a switch as well. A device that does switching can help reduce the long-term management costs of your load-balancing infrastructure.

    If you prefer a hardware load balancer but can't justify the price, consider a combination network device that does even more. A NetScaler switch provides not only load balancing but also caching and SSL VPN functionality, and the Foundry Server Iron XL includes Layer 2/3 access control, giving you basic firewall capabilities in addition to load balancing.

    Special Issue:
    Affordable IT

    Introduction
    Desktop Management
    Desktop Security
    Patch Management
    Protocol Analyzers
    Network Monitoring
    Network Configuration
    Storage
    Whiteboxes &
      Used Gear
    All-In-One Gateways
    Mobile & Wireless
    E-Mail
    Web Servers
    Load Balancers
    Remote Access Security

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