The LoadMaster appliance line provides load balancing and SSL offload capabilities for Web server farms and is the primary product offering from KEMP technologies. Targeted primarily to SMEs (but supporting up to 1,000 physical servers) the appliances in the line range from the 1500 model, with a trio of 10/100 ports and maximum throughput of up to 100 Mb/sec; to the 3620, with dual Gig Ethernet ports and a max throughput rating of up to 800 Mb/sec.

Each of the appliances in the line are 1U in size, and provide Layer 4-7 load balancing, Layer 7 content switching, and SSL offload capabilities for the Web server farms they front (up to 1,000 physical and 256 virtual servers are supported).

Load balancing features of the product include support for multiple algorithms, including round robin, weighted round robin, least connections, weighted least connections, and the vendor's adaptive balancing technology that regularly and independently checks the state of the individual servers and adjusts the server weighting based on their actual loads. Additional HA features of the product include support for active/standby failover configurations, ICMP health checking of server farm machines, and service checking for DNS, FTP, HTTP, IMAP, NNTP, POP3, SMTP, and TELNET (with automatic reconfiguration for defective physical servers).

On the Layer 7 content switching side, connection persistency is supported via multiple metrics; including source IP, SSL session ID, URL, host header, passive/active cookie, cookie hash, cookie hash source, and query hash.

Finally, for SSL offload the appliance can function as an SSL termination point, allowing for the aggregation (and centralization) of SSL management across the server farm. Features include support for wildcard SSL certificates, encryption support including 256-bit AES, and support for end-to-end encryption. SSL performance is based on the model chosen (see below).

Other features of the appliance include support for both a CLI (w/console port) and Web based GUI (with SSL connectivity), and support for basic security filtering including black lists, IP address filtering, firewall filtering, and DDoS mitigation.

Individual offerings in the LoadMaster product line as of this writing include:

- LM-1500: With 3 10/100 ports, maximum throughput of 100 Mb/sec, and SSL acceleration of up 100 transactions/sec. Up to 10,000 concurrent Layer 7 sessions are supported and up to 250,000 concurrent Layer 4 sessions; while up to 10,000 concurrent SSL sessions are supported and up to 1,700 simultaneous SSL connections.

- LM-2460/2860: With 6 10/100 ports, maximum throughput of 100 Mb/sec, and SSL acceleration of up 100/1000 transactions/sec. Up to 50,000 concurrent Layer 7 sessions are supported and up to 1M concurrent Layer 4 sessions; while up to 50,000 concurrent SSL sessions are supported and up to 3,000 simultaneous SSL connections.

- LM-2500: The newest entry in the product line. The LM-2500 boasts 2 10/100 and 2 10/100/1000 ports, a throughput rating of up to 300 Mb/sec, and SSL acceleration of up 1,000 transactions/sec. Up to 50,000 concurrent Layer 7/SSL sessions are supported and up to 1M concurrent Layer 4 sessions. 3,000 simultaneous SSL connections are supported (upgradable to 5,000).

- LM-3620: With dual 10/100/1000 ports, maximum throughput of 800 Mb/sec, and SSL acceleration of up 1,000 transactions/sec. Up to 50,000 concurrent Layer 7 sessions are supported and up to 1M concurrent Layer 4 sessions; while up to 50,000 concurrent SSL sessions are supported and up to 3,000 simultaneous SSL connections.

Note, however, that with the arrival of the LM-2500, the LM-2460/2860 and the SM-1010 (a dual 10/100 port device that offers SSL offload only with load balancing and content switching listed as optional) will be discontinued by the vendor.

Pricing ranges from $2,490 (LM-1500) to $8,990 (LM-3620). The new LM-2500 is regularly priced at $5,990; but has an introductory price of $4,490 until August 31.

Visit the KEMP technologies Web site for further information.