Kemp LoadMaster Reviews

Our primary use for the Kemp LoadMaster is load balancing our exchange and IIS web services to be able to meet the high availability standard for our organization. We get additional security features so there is no need to make these configuration steps on a server again. With the offloading capability, you can even secure servers that normally can't be secured.

Currently, we are using it with our web servers and exchange, for both internal and external access. Also, the reverse proxy is one of the greatest benefits.

We use Kemp to improve the security and availability of our web properties to external customers and partners, as well as a custom banquet application that is accessed over a cloud connection.

The Kemp LoadMaster gives us load balancing/reverse proxy capabilities as well as a web application firewall to protect our web application environment and website.

We use the technology across the entire organization to solve the issue of site performance and availability issues of our applications to external users when booking and managing events.

The most valuable features for us are the Load Balancing and Web Application Firewall, as we have a lot of web applications. It was difficult to meet the high availability without doubling most of the work. With the WAF, we can publish without risking our infrastructure being internet-facing.

The following features are also valuable:

• TLS (SSL) Offload
• Layer 7 Content Switching
• High Availability (Active/Standby)
• Health Checking
• Permit /Deny Access Control Lists
• IP address filtering
• IPsec Tunnel support
• DDoS mitigation, including L7 rate-based attacks
• IPSec VPN to Azure, AWS, vCloud Air public clouds
• Authenticated NTP
  

From my point of view, the only minor thing that needed to be improved is log management. It has all types of logs and they are very detailed, but it's a little bit hard to search for a single event.

Log management is critical for investigating an attack or unwanted behavior. Since they have a lot of logs, it takes a lot of time to look for a specific event. Also, for the WAF, it would be great if they can provide a dashboard or insight dashboard for WAF logs.

other than that there is nothing need to be improved from kemp

We have been using Kemp LoadMaster for three years.

very stable, since 3 years we didn't face any issues 

very easy to scale the solution

very helpful technical team

We used to work with Windows NLB, and we switched to Kemp to meet a higher level of stability and quality of service.

straightforward, using the documentation provided by kemp

in-house

This product has good value and features for the money.

Prior to choosing Kemp, we evaluated Zen Load Balancer and NGINX. Comparing price and features, Kemp was the best option for us.

Basically, Kemp covers every critical thing that must be needed to complete the task at hand.

We currently utilize the Kemp LoadMaster VLM-500 series virtual appliances in our VMware environment. Initially, we were running with only a single appliance, but recently added a second to allow for High Availability pairing between them.

Our primary use for the LoadMaster appliances is to provide load balancing between our two Microsoft Exchange servers in our Office 365 hybrid environment. This has allowed us to obtain redundancy between them, rather than having a single point of failure for our email environment.                   

Before we implemented the Kemp LoadMasters into our Microsoft Exchange environment, we were operating our SMTP relay and OWA traffic directly to the Exchange server itself. This put us in a bad spot when it came to patching and maintenance, as well as when we had service-impacting Exchange issues occur on the server. 

By implementing load balancing via our Kemp LoadMaster, we were able to add an additional Exchange server into our environment, which allowed us to failover manually for maintenance, as well as have a backup for unexpected issues

The most valuable feature so far has been the high-availability options that allowed us to add an additional Kemp LoadMaster VLM virtual appliance into our VMware vSphere environment, to provide failover for our existing LoadMaster. We have never run into any service-impacting issues with the appliance itself, but having a second one allows us to reduce the downtime associated with maintenance upgrades to zero. 

I also appreciate the online licensing feature, which lets us update and install licenses on the appliances by simply logging into our KempID account. It was nice not to have to fuss with licensing and key file download/uploads.

So far, the only hitch we have run into is that would have been nice to have an easier method to add allow/whitelist entries into the Access Control lists for virtual services. 

Following an upgrade, we inadvertently lost all of our Access Control whitelist entries on one of our virtual services. Thankfully we had a backup of them, but to plug them back in, we had to enter them all manually. This ended up being a bit of a pain.

It would be great if there was a way to upload a .CSV file of ACL entries into the access control list, rather than having to add them one at a time.

We've been using Kemp LoadMaster for approximately five years.

We ran a single (non-redundant) LoadMaster appliance in our VMware environment for close to five years with zero outages caused by it, so I am very impressed with the stability of KEMP's devices. The only reason we explored adding a second appliance for High Availability was to make maintenance easier.

We've had other virtual appliances in the past that had to be rebooted occasionally, but that is not the case with the Kemp LoadMaster. They are rock solid in terms of stability.
 

We so far have not come anywhere near utilizing the total throughput of the appliances we have. They have no problems keeping up.

The customer service was great! They helped me to quickly resolve two licensing-related issues with our additional appliance purchase.

We did not previously use load balancing, Kemp was our first choice.

The initial setup is a breeze and is well documented.

It was implemented in-house using only Kemp documentation and no outside support.

Pricing for the perpetual licensing was fair to us for the features and ease of use we received.

We also evaluated Citrix NetScaler.

The VLM appliances boot insanely quickly, which is really impressive. During power cycles, we only drop between two and three pings to the devices.

We use this to load balance internal and external IT systems ranging from a few connections per minute to well over 10k connections per minute.

We also leverage the Global WAF features that Kemp offers.

We run these LoadMasters in an HA environment, to better allow for failovers and increased uptime. We use to balance HTTP/HTTPS traffic on the public internet for public sites, some with near 0k connections per minute. We also use to balance internal IT services such as LDAP, LDAPS, and DNS through various VIPs. 

Kemp has greatly improved our uptime, reduced time we spend on maintenance, and increased the reliability/trust we have in our load balancing system.

We had issues with the network architecture that was needed with our previous balancing system, and we found that we could run a much simpler network setup with the Kemp HA pair.

We can now avoid scheduled downtimes for infrastructure events, through the use of Kemp's HA setup and multiple real servers behind each VIP.

HA failovers are seamless and have allowed for a huge improvement in agility and flexibility in our environment. 

We leverage HTTP/HTTPS  load balancing, WAF, and DNS load balancing the most. We have found Kemp to be the most reliable for these services and have not had any issues at all.

The Global WAF has saved us more than one time from unwanted traffic.

HTTPS/HTTP balancing has been smooth and Kemp handles extremely high traffic loads with ease. We really also like the ability to do LDAP/LDAPS balancing for our internal customers.  This allows for a more smooth experience for our end users and for our internal applications.  

The one area that really could be improved upon is the GUI. Over the last several major versions, the GUI has remained virtually unchanged and still seems lacking. Since there is no "save" or "confirm" button, it is very easy to accidentally make a change on a live, production VIP, or endpoint.

Adding some sort of saving or confirming mechanism in the GUI would be nice and would make it seem more modern. This is not a show stopper for us, but really just a "nice to have". 

Overall, there is little that needs to be improved with this product. 

We have been using Kemp LoadMaster for six years.

They are very stable and reliable. We have had no issues at all over the last six years.

This product is very easy to scale up and grow. If in an HA pair, it can be done without downtime.

Support is a ten out of ten. They are quick to answer and very knowledgeable from the start.  They are far better than other IT vendors I have worked with.

Previously, we were using the Microsoft TMG server as a proxy to protect our Exchange server. We recently decided to upgrade the Exchange server, but the MS TMG server support had expired. I was looking for a solution that could provide a similar function.

While I was talking to a consultant, they recommended the Kemp load balancer. On top of the proxy server, I also configured Exchange with DAG, so we needed load balancing as well. After reviewing the product, we installed it and it's doing a great job.

Our primary requirement is to load balance and protect the Exchange active sync and OWA requests. My requirement was only for a proxy, but it provided us load balancing as well. This means that my overall solution is more robust and reliable.

In addition, the software is tiny and can be managed using the web portal, which we didn't have before. This means that managing the software is very easy. It also shows live usage and load on the server, which is really helpful. Their tech support is also really helpful if you need help or add any new rules. I am still exploring the product and planning on using it for more. 

1. Installation: The software looks simple but can provide very complex solutions. The installation is really easy if you have a virtual environment (e.g. VMware).
2. Configuration: The configuration is really easy and the web portal is self-explanatory.
3. Features: Proxy and load balancing are valuable features. We are only using it for Exchange load balancing, and it works great.
4. Tech support: Their technical support is excellent. We have 24-hour tech support. They are very knowledgeable and ready to help.
   

I have not seen a product that is as simple to use as this.

The only thing that I miss is that the TMG server was giving me live information about who is connected and what is the request about. Details include the username, etc. I know Kemp gives you some live load info, but not the authentication data unless I am not aware of it.

We have been using Kemp LoadMaster for about ten months.

It is very stable.

They have multiple tiers of licensing and you can upgrade it easily. I updated my license without any hiccups.

Their customer service and tech support are excellent.

Their technical support team leads you in the right direction. If we have a question about the features then they help configure them as well.

I did use the Microsoft TMG server, but its tech support expired and is no longer available.

Since I was not familiar with the product, it seemed complex. With the help of their tech support, I now understood it and find that it's really simple. 

I took some assistance from the vendor and they helped with installing it. This is something that I could have done if I had referred the documentation. They also did the basic configuration. The next configuration was done with the help of tech support.

The cost of the solution is very low compared to the ROI. 

The installation and setup are really easy if you refer to the documentation. Or, you can pay a maximum of two hours for a consultant and they can help. The vendor's tech support is really helpful, as well.

I did not evaluate other options. This product was suggested by my consultant and I trust him.

I love this product ad definitely recommend it to others. I know that it can do much more than I use it for. So far, I have not looked into other features but I am planning on expanding the usage in near future.

I am getting some updates from them about added features to the product.

I will be working on a few more projects and planning on using it for these.

We are using Kemp as a reverse proxy for Microsoft Exchange. We are also using the product for load-balancing internal services.

The Kemp virtual appliance is installed in the DMZ and forwards the traffic to the internal servers. We configured the Edge Security Pack (ESP) so that the virtual appliance captures the credentials of the user, validates those against the authentication services, and then lets the user pass through.

Using this solution, it doesn't publish Exchange servers directly over the internet, thus providing security.

Having a reverse proxy is a secure way to protect access to inside services like Microsoft Exchange. With the ESP configured, we feel that the services are more protected from external threats. There's a lot of attacks possible on Exchange and we needed a solution that would prevent direct access to the web interfaces.

Having the virtual appliance sitting between the internet and the real servers, it intercepts the requests, process them, and can block unwanted requests with the Web Application Firewall.

The most valuable feature is the reverse proxy with ESP since it protects forms and provides authentication of web services. 

When you configure the listening services, you can implement a lot of security features like the Edge Security Pack that intercepts the requests and processes those before they are sent to the real servers.

There's an integrated Web Application Firewall module that you can activate to protect your online services. The module has an auto-update feature, where Kemp pushes the latest rules automatically to protect you against new threats.

The configuration of basic services is pretty straightforward but when you want to configure more advanced settings like the Edge Security Pack feature, it can be somewhat challenging! Even with the documentation, I had to contact the support to get help set this up properly. I think there should be more visual instructions on how to configure advanced features.

Support-wise, I've nothing to complain about. The support technicians are knowledgeable and were able to quickly help me set up and get things working.

The logging feature is somewhat archaic, as you have to go through text files. I think they should implement something more user-friendly for logging.

We've been using Kemp for several years. We used the physical appliances for about five years and we recently switched to the virtual.

We've been using the product for several years and it never crashed.

This product is pretty scalable with the virtual appliance.

Great support, fast and really professional.

Kemp was the first solution we used as a reverse proxy.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward.

We implemented in-house with help of Kemp support.

Nowadays, going with the virtual appliance is the easiest way and the cost is reasonable.

We did not evaluate other products before choosing Kemp. Instead, we looked at product reviews before purchasing.

We currently use multiple Kemp appliances to load-balance the delivery of email to our CAS\Mailbox environment.

Previously, we had multiple CAS servers and Mailbox servers and Kemp was handling that environment greatly. We also used it to migrate to a Single CAS with multiple DAGs. The process was very simple on the Kemp side.

We also are using it to assist us with uptime due to any possible maintenance windows we have and/or any troubleshooting with the server environment. Kemp allows us to reboot servers and not affect mail delivery, as it will still deliver to a different node.

LoadMaster has greatly helped us with the uptime of our email services. If one server is having issues, it will still deliver to another server.

Using this product also made it easier to handle migrations to newer Exchange services because the product was the main point of communication, which meant that changes on the device affected everything. This made things simpler for us.

Not spending hours on troubleshooting issues, Kemp support resolved issues quickly.

The load-balancing is the biggest feature, of course. It just works. If one CAS goes down, Kemp will still deliver to the other server. It is the same with multiple mailbox servers. If one goes down then mail can still be delivered, due to the fact that Kemp is handling the communications.

Updates are easy to apply and don't cause downtime as long as you have two load-balancers. 

The product also allows us to limit certain services on the Exchange server. Allows more control and Access Control Lists (ACLs) for internal and or external access. Instead of making changes in IIS on a server, you can have Kemp control it.

Obviously, there are a lot of moving parts and fields\settings on Kemp LoadMaster. Not all the settings are easily understandable. It would be helpful if there were a way to incorporate tooltips on the fields so that we don't have to dig through documentation.

I don't expect the software to assist in migrations, but it would be a plus if they had more documentation on Exchange migrations with Kemp and specific changes that need to be made. However, support is very knowledgeable and assisted us.

I would like to see an increase in the knowledge base on technical issues or common troubles.

We have been using Kemp LoadMaster for one year.

We have used the product for multiple years and haven't had any issues or outages from it, so downtime was never an issue.

This product is highly scalable.

Technical support is A+. They were great in our migration process and even went to assist us with questions that we had on Exchange.

We did not use another similar solution prior to Kemp LoadMaster.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The vendor, Kemp, assisted us and they are very knowledgeable.

It has paid for itself after multiple years. 

Any decent product will cost money and if you want great support and a great product, then you will want to spend the money on it.

We did not evaluate other products before choosing this one.

Our use case included product testing on how to configure the load balancing products.

My primary use case is to deploy the load balancer. We provide the deployment professional service to the end-user. Due to Singapore's government policy, government sectors do not allow the connection of the internet. Therefore, we will be the hands and legs of the Kemp professional service. We will seek advice from the Kemp professional service team before and after every time we onsite to the customer's site.

As a partner of Kemp Technologies, we're using the load balancers as a demo and testing environment. This helps us in providing product issue support for load balancers.    

Other than that, the demo is also conducted during product introduction, pre-sales stage.  

Next, we also conduct feature testing on Kemp's load balancing products.   

Functional testing is done on our environment before we implement to a customer's environment. Other than that, we can also try to simulate the customer's issues when we were handling support cases.  

The most valuable feature that I found is the load balancing feature, it is the core function of the product.   

The load balancer is stable and met the customer's expectations. So far, there have not been any issues reported on the basic load balancing functions.  

Besides that, there is also a load balancing mode that fits into the customer's requirements. This also gives more choice for the customer to change their load balancing mode in the future due to the yearly improvement of the audit requirement.   

I would like to give some advice on security improvement:

• First, is the password complexity's restriction. For example, there should be a password restriction policy on the password that only can be made up of a minimum of 12 alphanumeric characters with upper & lower cases.
• Second, is the password age restriction. For example, the password should be changed at least every 90 days.
• Third, the password history restriction needs improvement. For example, the password policy will restrict the user to always use a unique password combination. The password should not be reused for a minimum of three generations of passwords.
• Last but not the least, the default administrator account should be able to rename. This is to prevent a hacker to use brute force attack on the known default administrator ID.
  

I have been using this solution for more than one year.

We have fewer issues reported from the end-user. The support response is fast.

So far scalability has been good.

Technical support is good. So far every case is handled properly.

We did not previously use a different solution.

We implemented through the vendor team. They are very experienced.

I used it as a front end to an RDS Farm. Its load-balancing port 80 and port 443 to multiple RDS Gateways. It's deployed as a virtual appliance on an on-prem virtual machine hosted on the Hyper-V server. Kemp LoadMaster is used by more than 1,000 internal users on a daily bases to access the application system at the back end. It's not exposed to the internet, it's used only from internal users inside the corporate LAN. We have daily VM backups setup as well as application backups from inside KEMP.

We used to have DNS round-robin based load balancing from some small applications but it was not highly available and if one instance were to do down half of the traffic would go down. We have tested the build it Microsoft Load balancer, but it was free and it was not reliable. Currently, we are using ZEN NLB for a few small applications that do not require many features but when it came to having a proper NLB for 1000 users the ZEN NLB could not handle the load. We have tested F5 and Kemp and Kemp were much cheaper and easier to setup.

I like that this is a Network Load Balancer that can be used practically with any application in the backend. They have how-to guides on how to set up Kemp NLB with Exchange, but you can use it as well for Sharepoint, RDS, or any other back end server. I like that the interface is intuitive, you have the option to load an SSL certificate on it so then the traffic can be inspected there, this is especially important when you have an Exchange server or RD Gateway at the back that heavily uses SSL Certificates. It has an option to be HA so if you need you can set up two of them to be up and running at the same time in Active-Active fashion. 

The product is really good as-is out of the box. If there is one thing I would change is to have the license file not be coupled with the MAC address of the device. This is actually not really useful in a virtual environment where if you have a single VM with KEMP LoadMaster and you have not set up static MAC Address, if you, for example, recreate the VM and just load the disk file on a new VM it will get new MAC address and the NLB will not work as it will not see a proper license. You need to call their support, explain what the issue is, and then they will generate a new license that you can apply. If this is a production environment and you just had an outage and quickly required the VM then you are extending the outage by the time it will take to get their support to help with the new license.

I have been using Kemp LoadMaster for more than two years.

It's rock-solid and very stable.

It can scale easily, I believe you only need to load a new license.

Technical support is nice, they will help you over the phone/email but I had few questions about the design and even professional services were not purchased their support engineer did a screen sharing session to take a look on the configuration to make sure it's following their best practices for the use case we were using it for.

I have used ZEN NLB and Microsoft NLB.

It was easy to get in touch with their sales and get it ordered.

I have implemented it myself.

KEMP NLB is on the cheaper side of the spectrum but works great. If your license expires it will still run just you won't be able to do any changes.

Yes, F5.

Its a nice and easy NLB to set up and operate on a day to day basis. I highly recommend it. 

The client required an infrastructure solution for the internal development team that was complaining regarding the performance and issues with the previous open-source solution. The usual infrastructure staging/development/production is available to the development team. Kemp LoadMaster serves as the internal load balancer for the application and web security layer with the Intrusion Prevention (IPS) and Web Application Firewall (WAF) that replace the opensource solution previously implemented.

Kemp LoadMaster has definitely reduced the complaints from the development team since its deployment. Even the administrators/support are pleased with the intuitive administrative portal and ease of usage. In terms of stability, the application is much more reliable and the security feature of Web Application Firewall (WAF) fully has the auditor requirement. With the virtual version of the Kemp LoadMaster, it was simply carving a virtual resource to spin up a virtual instance to test or put in use for another section.

The base feature of Kemp LoadMaster load balancing ticks all the boxes but the most valuable features would be the security features Intrusion Prevention (IPS) and Web Application Firewall (WAF). Both the features are not only reliable and stable but being an integrated solution makes troubleshooting and pinpointing the issue much easier than fumbling around on different devices/logs. The RESTful and PowerShell APIs are definitely come handy in this automation era and makes network development easy.

Overall, the Kemp LoadMaster has been an all-rounder great product and stable. The free trial and virtual edition make it a breeze for any potential customer to give it a spin before actually deciding to put it on the infrastructure or even talk to the CFO. Kemp could create a more structured lab oriented training program as part of its certification bundled with an online cloud lab that makes it easy for a client to learn and try out the Kemp LoadMaster immediately. The sales team would also benefit from this cloud lab service.

It has been roughly about a year plus since the solution was deployed for the client.

The Kemp LoadMaster perform extremely well and stable during the POC testing and actual going live with the users.

Very scalable product.

Technical support is smooth and responsive.

We previously used a different solution and we switched mainly due to cost restriction.

Straightforward setup.

The deployment was done through a vendor team.

There must be a balance between cost and features. Going opensource usually goes up in terms of learning/training cost.

We evaluated F5, HA proxy, NGINX.

The primary use case of this solution is for load balancing websites, load balancing Citrix solutions, and load balancing Microsoft Dynamics.

This solution has helped us in certain situations that we have had to find a way to work around.

I like the way this solution handles multiple SSLs in different domains while still load balancing. I find that to be a very interesting feature.

It should be more customizable and perhaps more like NetScaler in that regard. Although Kemp is very user-friendly, it lacks a more custom configuration.

I would like to see this solution more customizable in the next release.

I have been using this solution since May of 2019.

This solution is stable. It's pretty good.

This solution's scalability is pretty good.

We have about 200 users in finance, customer service, and IT.

We are using this solution every day and we have plans to increase our usage.

The support is great.

Previously, I had used Microsoft NLB. We switched because it was more difficult to configure and it had many issues.

The initial setup was straightforward. It was very intuitive and user-friendly. The application itself is built to be more user-friendly.

It took two days to deploy. It wasn't difficult and it involved checking the configuration and calling support. There was no different kind of strategy.

It only takes one person to deploy and maintain this solution. As the Networking Administrator, I am the person who is responsible.

We did not use an integrator, reseller, or consultant. Only the main support.

Licensing is yearly and I am going to guess that it is CAN $2000.00.

There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

Check for the complete needs of your entire network system.

In order to configure things, you will have to first draw out your connections before you implement it.

This solution is good and it's reliable but there are things to improve.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.