Load Balancer Featured Article

Layer 4 or Layer 7? What to Consider when Choosing a Load Balancer

By Beecher Tuttle, TMCnet Contributor

With the recent influx of innovative network-based technologies, users have developed extremely high standards for websites and applications. Whether they are bringing up a consumer-focused website or a business-critical application, today's average user has no patience for slow load times or generally poor performance.

These lofty expectations have created a heavy demand for server load balancer technologies, which enable companies to optimize their Web and application performance and availability. Load balancers have become extremely popular because they distribute network load across multiple servers. This provides a number of benefits, including faster load times and the elimination of downtime. Best of all, load balancers allow companies to accelerate their website and application performance without having to purchase additional servers, which are major capital investments.

Coyote Point, a leading provider of load balancing technologies, recently issued a white paper to help companies understand which type of equipment is right for them. In addition to intelligent load balancing, Coyote's Internet Traffic Management (ITM) solutions provide reliable failover, intuitive configuration and the robust reporting of server and cluster performance at a highly competitive price point.

In the white paper, Coyote Point breaks down the benefits and differences of two forms of load balancing: Layer 4(L4) and Layer 7 (L7).

As the more sophisticated load balancer, L7 devices work at the application level and enable "advanced network architectures by allowing routing decisions based on application information and by examining content beyond the packet header," wrote the authors of the white paper.

In addition, L7 load balancers "maintain session persistence by examining cookies sent by user browsers, ensuring that users who input information will be returned consistently to the server storing that information," they added.

However, Coyote Point is quick to point out that not all networks require the capabilities offered by L7 load balancing devices. Networks that provide high availability, fail-over protection and easy cluster management can be strong fits for the more cost-effective L4 device. L7 load balancers, on the other hand, are best suited for networks that are required to ensure session persistence for a high volume of users and discriminate content delivery between different user groups.

The free white paper is designed to help companies that are looking to improve their application and website performances choose the most applicable load balancer device for their needs. The document also details the differing capabilities of Coyote Point's L4-enabled E250 solution and the L7-enabled E350, E450, and E650 Equalizer models. The company encourages IT administrators consider their network needs and architecture before choosing a load balancer.

"Time-tested L4 load balancing with E250 offers a feature-rich HA solution at minimal cost," reads the white paper. "The innovative L7 architecture of E350, E450, and E650 provides dramatic capital cost savings due to improved network resources utilization, reuse of existing external hardware, and operational efficiency."

Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Carrie Schmelkin

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