Millions of people rely on the Internet every day and staying connected is vital for businesses around the world. How can network downtime - which can cost revenue and worker productivity - be averted? By using multiple links to the Internet from different Internet Service Providers (ISPs) with an Internet load balancing router to efficiently manage network traffic and optimize the WAN connections.
To balance the network traffic over the various WAN links, the router can use any number of methods. One such method is a load balancing algorithm which takes the amount of bandwidth (uplink and downlink speeds) as well as current utilization to determine which WAN line each connection should use. Certain configuration settings can alter the algorithm - such as removing a WAN line from load balancing altogether - for finer control over how traffic travels over the network.
Although these routers provide load balancing features, they can also be configured to use certain links for network traffic. For example, sending all traffic from the employee network over the primary WAN link and sending traffic from the guest network over a backup WAN link. This creates an efficient network as administrators can direct traffic over desired links.
So far, this article has only described how this router can influence traffic leaving the network. How can it control Internet traffic coming into the network? The answer is simple: configuring the router as a Domain Name Server (DNS).
Remote users access resources over the Internet by using hostnames which are easier to remember while computers use the Internet protocol (IP) address. DNS is used to resolve a name to an address and the answer is provided to the end user's machine so they can connect. Without DNS, the router cannot control which WAN link a user connects from as the path has already been determined. However, by configuring the router to answer DNS requests, it can return information for the desired WAN link to the end user and ensure that incoming connections use only certain WAN link(s). This method allows load balancing as well as redundancy as only operational links will be used to answer DNS requests.
Almost every business today relies on the Internet - whether it is for employees or customers' access - so a reliable and consistent connection to the Internet is required. The Internet load balancing router meets this need by directing network traffic over multiple WAN links through the use of load balancing mechanisms, such as some algorithm or DNS.
Additionally, the ability to create defined routes for certain services or users allow greater flexibility and control for network administrators.
Marina Evelin writes for Ecessa, who are award winning line of Internet Load Balancing products and well known for their reliability & performance. Check out our award-winning product line here at ecessa.com
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