Hi Leo,
I don't like bringing politics into this forum because it's the one
place I can still just be a geek. I come from a hosting background where
my primary areas of LB expertise revolved around NetScaler, Cisco
(CSS's), and F5, so I should tell you I don't have any first hand
experience with Crescendo, but even if I had first-hand experience with
their devices, I wouldn't make any sort of statements about press
releases or claims they've made. However, you do bring up an interesting
article. I doubt Citrix itself has any sort of comment on the NWW test.
I don't really have any comment on it except to point out that there
really is no standardized testing methodology for ADC/AFE's, which is
both a curse and a blessing. See, there's no absolute set of tests that
will tell you which device is the absolute best device on the market
because ADC's (I don't like the term AFE) do different things for
different environments. It's tough to do these sorts of analyses, and I
didn't envy David Newman (the guy who ran the tests) because his task of
creating a "Clear Choice Test" of these devices was utterly impossible.
Allow me to defer to tidbits from the article:
"As is often the case with any new market category, there are
substantial differences in terms of form factor, topological
requirements and supported features.
Because of those differences, and because this is a relatively new
product category and no device aced all tests, we're not scoring
products this time around. As our results clearly show, different Web
front-end vendors have put their development dollars in different
places."
"It's important to note that we're not claiming either set of tests
represents "real-world" behavior for all users. There are too many
variables in application load testing for a one-size-fits-all definition
of that term to be meaningful."
"No device aced every event; rather, the results suggest different
vendors optimized for different aspects of device performance."
"Faced with all these differences, the best advice we can offer in
choosing a Web front-end device for your network is to assess which of
these metrics matters most, and go for the box that delivers the biggest
benefit in that area."
(http://www.networkworld.com/reviews/2006/011606-wfe-intro.html)
So we basically ran a bunch of devices through a bunch of tests and the
conclusion was that they all do things differently and their benefits
are entirely dependant upon the particular implementation scenarios.
What I recommend to anybody who's in the market for one of these is:
First identify the vendors you're interested in based on references in
your industry. Create your own test bed based on staging environments of
your actual networked applications, and then invite your shortlisted
vendors in for a bakeoff of your own. The only way to make an
intelligent decision on which product is right for you is to test it
under your unique set of circumstances.
-Tal
--- Tal M. Klein Technical Marketing & Strategy Citrix Application Networking Group Direct: 408-790-8536 Mobile: 415-336-3779 E-mail: tal.klein@citrix.com ________________________________ From: lb-l-bounces@vegan.net [mailto:lb-l-bounces@vegan.net] On Behalf Of Leo Chan Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 8:03 AM To: Load Balancing Mailing List Subject: Re: [load balancing] Netscaler Hi Tal, Do you have any comment on Crescendo Networks ? There is the information found in their website "Crescendo Networks CN-5080E Satisfies "Need for Speed" in Network World's Landmark Application Front End (AFE) Test" http://www.crescendonetworks.com/engsite/html/newsItem.asp?itemID=1&Pid= 47&Sid=9 Leo On 4/21/07, Tal Klein <Tal.Klein@citrix.com> wrote: Hi guys, What a great thread, I feel kindof lame coming it to it so late. First of all thanks Chuck for stepping up and also Tony for the NIC vs. throughput discussion which I was going to get into, but having read through it I think everyone covered it rather nicely. The NetScaler 12000 currently has several gigs of throughput (I don't have the spec sheet in front of me but I think its max throughput is like 6 gig) which can be achieved through link aggregation and in fact many of our customers use the box that way. However, the need for 10G ports has been heard loud and clear. We wanted to be certain that our 10G solution would be solid, but to answer Chuck's original question, I'm pretty sure we'll have a 12000 with 10G ports available this quarter. If any of you are coming to Interop in Vegas, stop by the Citrix booth and we can talk shop. Cheers, -Tal --- Tal M. Klein Technical Marketing & Strategy Citrix Application Networking Group Direct: 408-790-8536 Mobile: 415-336-3779 E-mail: tal.klein@citrix.com -----Original Message----- From: lb-l-bounces@vegan.net [mailto:lb-l-bounces@vegan.net] On Behalf Of Chuck Adkins Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 8:13 AM To: Load Balancing Mailing List Subject: Re: [load balancing] Netscaler Thanks for the feedback on the 10G ... Anyone using Netscaler that can speak to stability, support, ease of administration, availability of metrics for uptime/capacity planning/etc Regards, Chuck Adkins -----Original Message----- From: lb-l-bounces@vegan.net [mailto:lb-l-bounces@vegan.net] On Behalf Of Simon Hamilton-Wilkes Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 11:40 AM To: Load Balancing Mailing List Subject: Re: [load balancing] Netscaler Correct, it's their biggest box and has 8 gigabit SFP ports on the front. It is a nice box though and has handled almost everything we've tried (very large scale SSL offload was the exception - not all possible algorithms are hardware accelerated and our client couldn't change which ones their app used) I agree a couple of 10 gig ports would be nice - I'm increasingly having the need for 10 gig on projects, big pipes are way more efficient than port aggregation, just wish the switch ports from it would come on down in price, the Woven switch is promising, and Force 10 have their 24 port 1U box. On the economy front right now I'm using 8 port 1U switches from HP. Simon On 4/18/07, Chuck Adkins <chuck.adkins@theice.com> wrote: > Looking for some community feedback on the Citrix/NetScaler LB > solution > - specifically the 12000 platform - stability, support, admin ease, > availability of metrics for uptime/capacity planning/etc > > Also - as far as I can tell Netscaler has no support for 10G - anyone > have any other data or know when 10G support is coming? > http://www.citrix.com/site/resources/dynamic/salesdocs/CitrixNetScaler > Ap pDeliveryHardwarePlatforms.pdf looks like the 12000 is biggest box, > the only option with dual cpu, and it does only G. > > > Regards, > > Chuck Adkins > > > > -------------------------------------------------------- > This message may contain confidential information and is intended for specific recipients unless explicitly noted otherwise. If you have reason to believe you are not an intended recipient of this message, please delete it and notify the sender. This message may not represent the opinion of IntercontinentalExchange, Inc. (ICE), its subsidiaries or affiliates, and does not constitute a contract or guarantee. Unencrypted electronic mail is not secure and the recipient of this message is expected to provide safeguards from viruses and pursue alternate means of communication where privacy or a binding message is desired. > > > _______________________________________________ > lb-l mailing list > lb-l@vegan.net > http://vegan.net/mailman/listinfo/lb-l > Searchable Archive: http://vegan.net/lb/archive http://lbdigest.com > Load Balancing Digest > _______________________________________________ lb-l mailing list lb-l@vegan.net http://vegan.net/mailman/listinfo/lb-l Searchable Archive: http://vegan.net/lb/archive http://lbdigest.com Load Balancing Digest -------------------------------------------------------- This message may contain confidential information and is intended for specific recipients unless explicitly noted otherwise. If you have reason to believe you are not an intended recipient of this message, please delete it and notify the sender. This message may not represent the opinion of IntercontinentalExchange, Inc. (ICE), its subsidiaries or affiliates, and does not constitute a contract or guarantee. Unencrypted electronic mail is not secure and the recipient of this message is expected to provide safeguards from viruses and pursue alternate means of communication where privacy or a binding message is desired. _______________________________________________ lb-l mailing list lb-l@vegan.net http://vegan.net/mailman/listinfo/lb-l Searchable Archive: http://vegan.net/lb/archive http://lbdigest.com Load Balancing Digest _______________________________________________ lb-l mailing list lb-l@vegan.net http://vegan.net/mailman/listinfo/lb-l Searchable Archive: http://vegan.net/lb/archive http://lbdigest.com Load Balancing Digest
_______________________________________________
lb-l mailing list
lb-l@vegan.net
http://vegan.net/mailman/listinfo/lb-l
Searchable Archive: http://vegan.net/lb/archive
http://lbdigest.com Load Balancing Digest
Received on Mon May 7 17:24:40 2007
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Mon May 07 2007 - 17:24:40 EDT