Latest
Multi-AZ resilience: Why the recent AWS outage shows you need it
Don't wait for the next outage to expose gaps in your critical architecture.
Insights from the load balancer experts
F5 / Citrix / Kemp
How to set up and manage an F5 in the ADC Portal
As an F5 engineer, they asked me to test the product and share my honest thoughts...
F5 / Citrix / Kemp
How to connect and manage a Citrix NetScaler in the Loadbalancer ADC Portal
As a NetScaler specialist, they asked me to test the product and share my honest thoughts...
How-tos
How to master SSL termination in HAProxy: considerations and configurations
SSL/TLS termination is the most regularly implemented kind of SSL/TLS offload...
Media
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?..
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!..
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...
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"...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,..
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Healthcare
HIMSS and ECR 2019: Working together for better healthcare data solutions
An incorrect frame length check could result in a read-past-bound which can cause a crash...
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...
Application Management
Load Balancing Exchange 2016
Exchange 2016 is Microsoft's latest enterprise level messaging and collaboration server...
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...
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...
Print
Printing without pain: How to scale print environments and avoid downtime
Print environments often bring together multiple technologies and applications, which can present challenges. There’s the issue of planned downtime: end-users may need to make manual changes to their network when print services fail, taking servers out of production for maintenance or updates.....
HAProxy
New year, new vulnerability: HAProxy critical security update
An incorrect frame length check could result in a read-past-bound which can cause a crash...
Direct Server Return
15 years later, we still love DSR: Why Layer 4 DR mode rocks
For the uninitiated, Direct Server Return is a clever trick which entails directly routing packets to the chosen real server...