Insights from the load balancer experts

Automation

How to automate load balancer deployments (API / CLI / JSON / SOAP / PowerShell)

For our v8.4.1 release we added network, routing and HA functions to LBCLI, allowing you to completely automate the entire deployment from initial power-on to a fully configured HA pair...

Andrew Smalley

• 16 mins

Open source

How to load balance VMware's AirWatch Mobile Access Gateway (MAG) and Secure Email Gateway (SEG) with HAProxy

Want to configure a load balancer for VMware's AirWatch Mobile Access Gateway (MAG) and Secure Email Gateway (SEG)? Let's help you out...

Andrei Grigoras

• 4 mins

Security

Update on HAproxy HTTP/2 HPACK Decoder Vulnerability (2 April 2020)

A critical vulnerability in HAProxy’s HTTP/2 HPACK decoder in versions 1.8 and above has been discovered. This does not impact the majority of Loadbalancer.org customers...

Tom Hopkins

• 1 min

AWS / Azure / GCP

Why Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and PlayStation reducing their traffic won’t save the Internet

Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, Disney and Apple recently began streaming content at lower bit rates - but is it actually improving performance or just good PR?..

Tom Hopkins

• 5 mins

Events

Talking free and open-source at FOSDEM 2020

Peter Statham talks about how it was to be a part of the 20th edition of FOSDEM - Europe's biggest free and open-source event!..

Peter Statham

• 5 mins

Healthcare

Load balancing: the backbone of seamless healthcare interoperability

Just like you and I, healthcare systems now talk to each other. Your data can be shared and accessed by all the stakeholders involved in the process of your treatment. To know more, read our blog on healthcare interoperability...

Himakshi Goswami

• 4 mins

AWS / Azure / GCP

AWS reservations, savings plans, and spot instances explained

I often hear that AWS seems expensive, in most cases, this is because people are not fully aware of the best cost-saving practices. Amazon offers many tools to help keep costs down and is always working to improve on these. One such recent improvement is the new "AWS Savings Plans"...

Aaron West

• 6 mins

How-tos

Security through Geography: blocking traffic by country, continent, or IP address using ModSecurity

Imagine you’re running a business and you often see malicious-looking web traffic from the other side of the globe hitting your website...

Andrew Howe

• 5 mins

Events

What the hack!

Hack Pompey is a Portsmouth based social hack event for people from all backgrounds and disciplines to come together, collaborate and build something awesome...

Andrew Zak

• 3 mins

How-tos

Smart, secure encryption with SNI

In the early days of the Internet, there was very little encrypted traffic. People simply trusted that nobody was out to get them. But later on, security and encryption became an important part of online life...

Neil Stone

• 4 mins

Storage

Load balancing: The driving force behind successful object storage

Do you know that your Kindle is spying on you? It knows how fast you read a book, how many pages you read, at which point you stopped reading and which passages you have bookmarked...

Himakshi Goswami

• 4 mins

Print

Microsoft Windows print spooler and any other Windows service health check

If you haven’t already deployed print servers with high availability, please don't fret. It is a relatively simple and straightforward process,..

Imannuel Graham

• 4 mins

Comparisons

How should you compare load balancers?

I didn't ask anything about the load balancer's features, because we already know the market is mature and I have no unusual requirements. I also didn't ask about the load balancer's maximum performance...

Malcolm Turnbull

• 6 mins

AWS / Azure / GCP

Choosing the best load balancer for AWS: Cloud conundrums

You’re moving over to Amazon Web Services (AWS), where you know you’ll find a broad set of global cloud-based services. These services help organizations like yours to move faster, lower IT costs, and scale...

Neil Hosking

• 3 mins

Comparisons

What are the best load balancing methods and algorithms?

The primary function of a load balancer is to keep your application running with no downtime. It is an invaluable tool for systems architects, and it has the benefit of being pretty simple to understand...

Malcolm Turnbull

• 10 mins

Open source

Anatomy of a partnership: Working and learning with Smoothwall

We were delighted last week to host Smoothwall for a day with our team. Fuelled by coffee and Krispy Kreme doughnuts, our discussions helped us learn from one another so that we can work together even more effectively...

Aaron West

• 3 mins

Security

SACK Panic: What is it, and is it actually time to panic?

Four closely related vulnerabilities regarding TCP handling in the Linux and FreeBSD kernels were publicly disclosed on 17 June 2019...

Andrew Howe

• 2 mins

Security

Huawei root access is BAD! VERY, VERY BAD: Or, how we reasoned ourselves out of root access by default

As you probably know, the notorious Chinese tech company was blacklisted OK, so Trump didn't actually say that about Huawei. But, given his recent declaration, it wouldn't surprise me if he did...

Malcolm Turnbull

• 4 mins

How-tos

How do I secure my load balancer with Active Directory, LDAP or RADIUS?

I’ve noticed a lot more of our customers are asking to use their Active Directory login details with the load balancer appliance. And it can get a bit fiddly, so I wanted to explain the process in more detail...

Neil Hosking

• 6 mins

Healthcare

HIMSS and ECR 2019: Working together for better healthcare data solutions

We’ve been to a whole series of medical-focused events recently...

Jake Borman

• 3 mins

Security

FTPS Implicit vs FTPS Explicit: Who will win?

Implementation of FTP and configuration of your firewalls can be cumbersome, especially when it comes to being secure during your file transfer...

Imannuel Graham

• 4 mins

Application Management

Load Balancing Exchange 2016

Exchange 2016 is Microsoft's latest enterprise level messaging and collaboration server...

Neil Hosking

• 3 mins

HAProxy

How to write an external health check script for HAProxy

Loadbalancer.org were the original sponsors of the external health check mechanism in HAProxy. We think it's an invaluable tool when you need something a bit special...

Damian Pacuszka

• 10 mins

WAF

Why use a WAF? Because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Our helpdesk often encounters confusion about Web Application Firewalls, or WAFs - what they are, how to use them, and what issues they can potentially cause...

Imannuel Graham

• 5 mins