WebSphere Application Server & Liberty

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Migration from Load Balancer for IPv4

  • 1.  Migration from Load Balancer for IPv4

    Posted 02/11/21 02:38 PM
    Looking for recommendations to replace our two IBM WebSphere Edge Components: Load Balancer for IPv4 8.0.0.7 servers because of this:
    https://community.ibm.com/community/user/middleware/blogs/elizabeth-riggins/2018/09/13/important-news-regarding-end-of-support-for-load-b

    We have two Windows based Edge servers which are both rather dated. One in our DMZ and one internal. We use the DMZ one to route an external address to an internal address. The internal ones are for routing to an appropriate end point. Let me explain. Let's say we go to https://something.dekko.com That goes to the Edge server and it routes something.dekko.com to one of a number of servers based on server availability. The Edge server has some intelligence in it to do stuff like if I go to https://something01.dekko.com and that test doesn't return a particular string then don't use that server. Round robin DNS or simple ping's aren't enough.
    We will look at the IBM solution also but since it's more of a complete migration than an upgrade, and they even mentioned looking at other products in their post, why not? While I tend to lean towards Windows because of staffing I understand that people tend to prefer Linux for this sort of thing for some reason or another. IBM seems to be giving Windows the kiss off for this product.

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    Robert Berendt
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  • 2.  RE: Migration from Load Balancer for IPv4

    Posted 02/12/21 03:11 AM
    F5 Big-IP, expensive but would do what you want.

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    Rab McGill
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  • 3.  RE: Migration from Load Balancer for IPv4

    Posted 02/12/21 07:11 AM
    That's the second recommendation I got for F5.  And almost word for word.  Thank you.

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    Robert Berendt
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Migration from Load Balancer for IPv4

    Posted 02/12/21 07:18 AM
    There is a trial version you could use to evaluate it. It is very powerful and allows easy manipulation and routing of the request. There are various addons like web application firewall and ssl offloading. 
    https://www.f5.com/trials

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    Rab McGill
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Migration from Load Balancer for IPv4

    Posted 02/12/21 10:28 AM
    Hello Robert,

    Just curious: is there something you don't like or feel wouldn't be a good fit about the IBM replacement, WebSphere's Load Balancer for IPv4 and IPv6 (ULB)? 

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    Jacob Banda
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  • 6.  RE: Migration from Load Balancer for IPv4

    Posted 02/12/21 10:40 AM
    Not necessarily opposed to migrating to the ULB version.  There were a few red flags.
    1 - Lack of support for newer versions of Windows.
    2 - The website freely mentioning seeking an alternative product.
    3 - The fact that it's more of a migration than an upgrade.
    None of these are show stoppers but we'd probably end up with a Linux version as we're not really into obsolete versions of Windows.
    It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we moved to the LLB version that we are on and I seem to remember that was a pretty hairy upgrade to.  However IBM support was fantastic and helped us a lot with modifying our .cfg file to work.  I do remember a little conversation about something to the effect that since we weren't using IPv6 we probably didn't need ULB.  I guess if I knew that LLB was on life support I would have migrated to ULB then.

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    Robert Berendt
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Migration from Load Balancer for IPv4

    Posted 02/12/21 10:43 AM
    You can think on a software solution like HAProxy or Nginx, both are powerful and easy to configure.

    For running both you will need to run a Linux box, but you can try to run o MS Windows server using a Container.

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    ENIO RUBENS BASSO
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  • 8.  RE: Migration from Load Balancer for IPv4

    Posted 02/12/21 10:54 AM
    Thank you for those suggestions

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    Robert Berendt
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: Migration from Load Balancer for IPv4

    Posted 02/15/21 12:11 PM
    The WebSphere Load Balancer for IPv4 and IPv6 would probably be the simplest and least expensive solution.  Migrating to Linux for the load balancers would reduce security exposures also. If you aren't using any of the deprecated features of the older load balancer, migration is pretty straightforward. If you have not already reviewed this material, it might be helpful to gauge the migration effort:
    Migration to the newer load balancer
    Command differences

    The IBM WebSphere Load Balancer is a very lightweight load balancer which is based upon an older IBM product called Network Dispatcher which originated over twenty years ago, around 1997.  As an application, it can not compare with the speed or capacity of dedicated hardware load balancers. It is, however, a viable solution for a simple load balancer to front a small to medium size WebSphere deployment and comes at no cost if you have a license for WebSphere Application Server - Network Deployment.

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    Betsy Riggins
    IBM

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    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: Migration from Load Balancer for IPv4

    Posted 02/15/21 12:40 PM
    Very compelling argument.

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    Robert Berendt
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    Original Message


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