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tmobmai_112666
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Feb 21, 2012

LTM Sizing and Sharing

Hi,

 

 

 

I was tasked to create Load balancer sizing and fault domain standard for our company. We have concerns about the number of applications we are putting on each pair of LB and want to consider the risk factors (how do we separate applications to reduce fate sharing) as well as capacity to size load balancers.

 

 

 

Is there an existing document addressing these issues? Any thoughts/suggestions ?

 

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 Replies

  • Hi,

     

     

    There are a number of possible solutions for limiting the failure domain for your apps. You could split out the apps to separate physical LTM pairs. Or you could virtualize your LTMs using vADC on a Viprion. For recommendations on this as well as sizing, you can get in touch with your local F5 or partner SE: www.f5.com/howtobuy

     

     

    Aaron
  • Thanks Aaron!

     

     

    I can definitely contact our Account Manager, but it is not about any particular platform or application...

     

     

    I was asked to create common design rules/standards that would work for ANY application and could be used as guidelines when adding new "tenant" (application) to an existing LTM pair. At this point I am trying to understand whether this is even possible, since every case and each application is unique.

     

     

    Thank you.

     

    -Boris
  • Need to understand the nature of the applications you'll be supporting and the modules you might enable on a particular device. My personal experience pre-F5, we had common beefy hardware in DMZ for SSL offload and compression/caching facing the WAN, then inside the DMZ, we segmented applications by function to the business. We watched memory/cpu and ordered new hardware early enough to not exceed the functional requirements on a particular platform.

     

     

    I think your task is noble, but in my humble opinion will only bring disappointment in that there just isn't a one size fits all approach to applications.

     

     

    That said, if your organization has design standards for applications, and you can characterize those standards into a template, there might be hope. But if there are no standards and the developers just sling code over the wall and hope it works, it will be difficult.
  • Thanks Jason. I am not from application design "side", but I hardly believe they follow common standards. I guess the very last sentence of your post exactly describes what I am facing :(.

     

     

    Thanks.

     

    Boris