Loadbalancer.org Reviews

Load balancing Exchange, print servers, our call desk software, and SharePoint.

It means that if one of our mail-servers falls over, it's a much more seamless process. Or if we need to do maintenance on one of them, we can take it out of the Loadbalancer in a controlled fashion so that users don't notice that there's been a problem, or that maintenance is going on. They continue business as usual. It's made end-users' experience much better.

• Reliability 
• High availability

At the moment, I can't think of anything. For what we use it for, it does everything we need it to. It does it well and it doesn't have any trouble, so I can't think of anything that I would change. 

No issues with stability. The only time we ever take it offline is when we do firmware upgrades on it, but that's in a controlled fashion. In seven years, we've not had any unexpected downtime at all.

When you do a manual failover, no one seems to notice it. It's a seamless thing, which obviously helps.

We have about 30,000 connections going through at any one time and it's fine, it doesn't seem to sweat. It doesn't get overloaded.

With this company, it's the best that I've experienced. They actually phone you back.

This is the first one that we bought, and it's the one we stuck with.

It's not complex. They provide very helpful guides on their websites for the things that we load-balance. We just followed the guides which were accurate and easy to follow. They're pretty good from that perspective.

While it's increased our uptime, we don't really justify cost as time - if that makes sense - so it's difficult to quantify.

We've got an unlimited license, which doesn't costs that much compared to other vendors, and we don't have to buy it again. The other thing they did was they gave us a free virtual appliance, so we paid for two and got three.

Buy what you need, or a little bit more than you need. Like I said, we've not had any trouble with them, we've bought the unlimited appliance and we're just using it, and we've not hit any limits.

We evaluated a couple of others and then decided to go with Loadbalancer. We evaluated KEMP, Zen, and F5.

I would say, go for it. It has proved to be a pretty reliable system, it hasn't let us down. Try to break it.

We've never had any trouble with it. And when I've had to speak to support about firmware upgrades and things like that, they either do it for you or they give you guides and it just works. It's probably few and far between, with regards to things that actually do what it says on the tin. There's a lot of stuff out there at the moment that says it does everything but it doesn't. This is one of the few that actually does it.

We provide a web-filtering system for 200 schools, and Loadbalancer.org makes sure that it balances across all of the web-filtering service that we've got, to provide good quality service.

It was part of a project that we did where we used to outsource all of the web-filtering to a third party. We weren't very happy with it. We wanted to bring everything in-house, control the system ourselves. This is an absolute key component to being able to allow us to do that. It's enabled us to have much better service to offer at a cheaper price, and much more resilient.

Most important for us that it makes sure that the load is distributed and that we always have access to the end-servers that they're connected to. We need that to make sure that we have a consistent, high level of service that the schools can rely on.

We've had a couple of minor issues in the two years they've been running, a couple of very small glitches. 

No we haven't had any scalability issues. We've installed them, installed the devices from day one, and they've worked absolutely fine.

In those cases where we had small glitches, whenever we contacted the support team, they've been absolutely fantastic.

We weren't really using anything ourselves because we were doing it through a third-party contract previously, but we switched to Loadbalancer.org at the recommendation of our web-filtering partners.

It was actually our partner who set them up for us, so we didn't have anything to do with it directly. But in our case, yes, it was straightforward.

The appliances have had a measurable effect on our operating costs. I wouldn't be able to put a finger on it as such, but yes, they've definitely helped.

I'd say it is very good value.

To be honest, our filtering partners said that they had done that work previously themselves, they had tried and tested, and they recommended Loadbalancer.org. So we just went with their recommendation. We, ourselves, didn't evaluate anything else, but I know that they have. They'd be in a much better place than us to do those evaluations.

I would rate it a nine out of 10. We have had one or two small crashes on them, nothing major, but I guess that would be the only thing stopping it from being a 10.

I would say that, from the experience that we've had, the devices, operation, and the support from the technical support teams, that I can't fault it. I can't fault the systems. I'd happily recommend them.

It's just worked. It's been a good system. We were advised to purchase it and it was good advice. I'd say that it's been absolutely 100% brilliant for us, and I wouldn't think twice about recommending them.

Load balance http and https requests, our customer service.

It has relieved the load on our team so we can focus on other aspects of the operation.

When we do load balancing, the customer does not know that this particular node is down because the load balancing hides it from them. So, from a customer point of view, they have what I would call an unbreakable service. The service is continuous. Now, on our end, because of the load balancer, we can actually hide it from them, move to another server and bring the bad server offline. So it does improve our SLA with the customer.

Ease of use and support.

The user interface precludes need to be well versed with Linux IPVS command line. This make it easy for junior team members to participate in managing load balancing needs. 

The support especially helps us with quick remote fixes. With a remote fix, I can view the fix in real time and yet ease security concerns for my supervisor. We had a few issues and they responded immediately. They came in remotely and fixed them. Everything is really good from the customer service point of view, which is what we expected it to be.

It would be great if there was a way to gain access to the graphing data, to create custom reports. If we had a way to use the graphing data, to somehow extract the data and chart it for this appliance, we could use it to present certain information to our client, such as the uptime status for their service.

Right now, there's no way for us to extract the data. So from that point of view, we can see it on the user interface but we cannot extract out the chart or the data.

No issues with stability. There were a few issues in the past, probably due to configurations. The support guy came in remotely and helped us to fix it. It's stable, it's in production nonstop.

So far no issues with scalability. It was easy to upgrade the license for unlimited clusters and servers.

When we bought the product, we got a lower tier version that had a limitation on the clusters. Then we upgraded to unlimited clusters due to our needs and it has been good. We have not made the limit of the unlimited clusters yet.

Super. They are good. They know what they are doing. They're responsive.

I used Linux IPVS in a previous job. It is not user friendly. It required much more hands-on knowledge. You need your command line, you need to fix things. With the Loadbalancer.org solution, on top of the command line they have a fancy GUI that makes it more user-friendly.

Straightforward. It's just a hardware setup. You just click on a few buttons in the GUI and everything is fine.

I really don't know for sure, as we previously used Round Robin DNS. I think it is likely immeasurable, as the business revenue depends a lot on the load balancer. We cannot live without it.

You can start with the base appliance R20 first and upgrade to the MAX version if necessary.

Their pricing is good. We are looking at it from a customer point of view. Customer downtime costs us money. So the pricing is is fair. They have good service and I recommend the company.

KEMP LoadMaster.

Implement major changes during the appropriate support hours so you can get support if things don't work out correctly.

Start out with the limited, restricted option first. Because to upgrade to the unlimited option, you just call customer service and get your license changed. That would help some small businesses. So if they evaluate, and they find that they need more, they just update their license and they get unlimited clusters. So that way they are saving, if they want to be cautious.

To have live failover for an intranet site we are using, and to monitor live user connections.

It does what it’s supposed to do which is balancing an important intranet site we are using, so if one server dies, the second becomes active straight away. The site is 24/7, so it’s crucial for us to always have it up and running.

It’s really difficult to say as we use it, as I mentioned, just to have the failover for our websites. We rarely access the interface; maybe to do a backup from time to time, or when we have connectivity issues to check if people are connecting.

If I have to say something, I suppose they could add an automated configuration backup to an FTP location (or something similar) so you don’t have to manually do it. I don’t see this as a problem, of course, as the configuration rarely changes and we only need one backup, but maybe for other users this feature would be handy.

Nothing at all.

No problems so far.

I used it once for an activation-key issue we had, and they helped me straight away, so 10 out of 10.

No previous solution.

Really user friendly, so no problem here.

The appliances have not had a measurable effect on our operating costs (payback on investment).

I think it’s very affordable, nothing more to add.

My advice to others considering this product is that they will experience a very good, stable product which is very easy to set up.

It actually makes our whole network more reliable, because of its load balancing capabilities. And not only load balancing, but also redundancy. That's what we use it for.

We can more easily set up a test environment, because you can easily configure your forms. It makes it more flexible for us to convert our test environment to a production environment, without having to change DNSs on the outside. You just configure the forms on the inside. So without changing the actual endpoint for the end user, we can create completely different networks in the background. So that's really flexible for us.

First of all it's the reliability, what you create by load balancing, because you have more endpoints. That's for our web services that we provide. This is the only feature for us, and it's important because it makes our network more reliable.

We are only using the basic features, and for us it's good. We're not yet using the SSL certificate offloading because we are still using an older software version. But I already know that in the new versions they have, it's built in. That would be a feature that I would like. But that's already there in the newer versions. As I said, we're still using an older one and it still works fine for us. 

No issues with stability. I had some questions, especially at the start, but their great service team was there for us. But no instabilities.

If I'm correct, we have the Enterprise version and it's very scalable. You can make endless endpoints and there are no restrictions in the version we have. So it's very much scalable.

Great, really. I give them a 10 out of 10. Their tech team provides really great support. Very knowledgeable engineers are there for you. They are very responsive and they come with good solutions. Their goal is really to help you, and they know it's one of the cores in your network because it creates the reliability. So that's why it's also one of the key points, that always needs to be working. They're supportive like that. They are very responsive.

We did have a previous solution once, but I don't remember the name because it was more than 10 years ago. We used a software solution on our own hardware, based in a Windows system, and it didn't work at all. After that we immediately decided on a more professional solution and this, Loadbalancer.org, is where we came to and we're still there.

As for our old solution, technically it was not working. The problem with the software solution - not theirs, a different company - the problem was that it worked fine for 100 users but it was not scalable at all. And then if the 110th user came in, the system totally crashed. It was not a good solution. We found out very quickly and, luckily, we found this solution.

It was very straightforward. You just create your virtual servers, you connect it to the physical servers and that's it. For me it was very straightforward. I like the way they think, how they made the interface.

I'm not really thinking of return of investment. For us it was important to make our network redundant and reliable. In that sense, yes there is a ROI, because you cannot run an organization without any redundancy. It needs to be reliable.

It's worth the cost. It's not cheap, but it's a good solution. If you're looking for a good solution, this is  a good solution. Is it cheap? No. Is it worth the money? Yes, I think it is.

Do it. 

I think they have very nice upgrade offers. When you start small, you can take the smaller version, and if your company is hopefully expanding, you can always choose an upgraded version. I remember they had nice offers. We never needed one because we immediately chose the Enterprise version but I can imagine that you would like to start small, and they have nice offers for that.

I would say it's a 10 out of 10, because it does exactly what it needs to do and that's what you want from a product.

Loadbalancer.org is used in a bank. All the traffic we forward to the QA are being redirected to Loadbalancer.org. There are additional load balancers created through Microsoft Azure and the traffic is being forwarded there as an additional layer to Loadbalancer.org where we are only using IP addresses and reports.

The interface from Loadbalancer.org should be improved.

I have been using Loadbalancer.org for a couple of months.

Loadbalancer.org is stable.

The scalability of Loadbalancer.org has been fine since I have been using it.

We have approximately 10 IT staff utilizing this solution.

The support we have received from Loadbalancer.org has been good.

I rate the support from Loadbalancer.org a nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of Loadbalancer.org is simple.

We used a consultant for the implementation.

We have approximately three engineers that do the maintenance of this solution.

I would recommend others to focus on the network and learn how the solution works fully and they should understand the concepts behind it.

I rate Loadbalancer.org an eight out of ten.

Existing customers are trying to migrate from the physical F5 load balancer to the AVI load balancer because it is scalable and easily managed. The solution's analytics is also very good.

Compared to the physical products, the solution's throughput is a little less.

I have been using the solution for two years.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten for stability.

The solution is highly scalable.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten for scalability.

We previously used an inbuilt load balancer.

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

The solution’s deployment doesn’t take too long.

You need to have a basic knowledge of load balancers to use the solution. You can deploy the solution on-premises or on the cloud. Analytics-wise, the solution is much better compared to other vendors.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.