Re: [load balancing] Load Balancer Evaluation: Which would you pick?

From: John Hall (j.hallIZZATf5.com)
Date: Thu Jan 22 2004 - 20:36:58 EST

  • Next message: Shawn Nunley: "RE: [load balancing] Load Balancer Evaluation: Which would you pick?"

    It *is* happy so far! And a happy new year to you as well! :)

    I find it interesting that you say you are not sending connections
    'through' an OS, yet you state that the packet engine operates in
    "kernel mode". All of the OS's I am aware of also have a kernel and
    connections being handled by that kernel are generally considered to be
    handled by the OS. I was trying to distinguish between what the switch
    folks usually call "slow path" (requiring processing by a host processor)
    and "fast path" (usually completely handled by ASIC's). In todays world
    of 3GHz CPU chips, the difference is becoming less and less, but it still
    is significant.

    I hate tit-for-tat, but the stacks used in BIG-IP are highly refined by
    us and bear little resemblance to a "generic OS TCP/IP stack" and also
    do not involve any context switching. I honestly suspect that the same
    would be said by most load balancing vendors.

    Cheers,
    JMH

    Shawn Nunley wrote:

    >John,
    >
    >Just to be clear, the NetScaler device does not ever send connections
    >'through' ANY OS, ever. The performance effects of doing this would be
    >catastrophic and would not allow us to support the speeds and feeds we
    >advertise. Everything is handled within our packet engine which
    >communicates directly with RAM, NICs and the CPU, all in kernel mode with no
    >context switching to slow things down.
    >
    >The difference is worth pointing out since we spent years developing that
    >technology in order *not* to be lumped in with devices that are limited by
    >generic OS TCP/IP stacks. Nothing personal, but I couldn't let that
    >generalization just slip by.
    >
    >BTW, I hope you're having a great New Year.
    >
    >-Shawn
    >
    >-----Original Message-----
    >From: John Hall [mailto:j.hallIZZATf5.com]
    >Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 12:44 PM
    >To: lb-lIZZATvegan.net
    >Subject: Re: [load balancing] Load Balancer Evaluation: Which would you
    >pick?
    >
    >
    >It would be interesting to find out what engineer said this, but it is
    >essentially incorrect. Recent BIG-IP's that have our Packet Velocity
    >ASIC (you gotta love marketing folks) have a range of load balancing
    >options including full hardware acceleration (the entire connection is
    >handled by the ASIC with no host processor support required) through
    >partial acceleration (the connection is initially handled by software,
    >but as soon as a load balancing decision is made, it's handed off to the
    >ASIC for the rest of the connection), to full software load balancing
    >which provides all the possible load balancing capabilities.
    >
    >In regards to the original question. I strongly suggest that you ask
    >the top several vendors on your list specifc questions about your
    >planned (and future) load profile. All of the boxes you are looking at
    >have a host processor running some OS (vxWorks, BSD, BSDI, etc) and all
    >of them send some types of connections to the host processor for
    >handling. The loads you are planning are significantly above the
    >capabilities of some of the boxes you list to handle in software, but
    >are probably quite easily handled in a partially or fully hardware
    >accelerated modes. Specific characterization of your load profile and
    >some direct questions to the vendors should help you narrow down your
    >choices.
    >
    >An illustrative anecdote involves the effect of the Nachi worm on
    >several vendors of six-figure cost layer 2/3 switches. Many of the
    >vendors sent ICMP packets to the switches host processor for handling
    >and their host processors are often amazingly low powered, so a single
    >Nachi infected PC sending ICMP packets to thousands of random
    >destinations could bring these very expensive and capable switches to
    >their knees. Some switches handled ICMP in hardware, but updated their
    >ARP tables using the host processor and they were incapacitated by ARP
    >updates. So, while these switches quite ably handled the "normal" layer
    >2/3 load, they were crippled by an unusual (but perfectly "legal", at
    >least according to the RFC's) load profile that their designers did not
    >anticipate.
    >
    >JMH
    >
    >Mike W wrote:
    >
    >
    >
    >>Radware is a switch based solution, while F5 is still a unix kernel
    >>based product, which some say takes them out of the "switch market" -
    >>their marketing discusses their network processor, but one of there
    >>engineers at a trade show last year finally admitted when pressed,
    >>that they didn't use it when doing actual load balancing, only if they
    >>were a router.
    >>
    >>
    >
    >
    > 

    -- 
John Hall              Test Manager - Switch Team             F5 Networks, Inc.

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