IOS SLB vs ACE for an Oracle implementation

resbanknet · ‎01-29-2008

My organisation is looking to implement an Oracle solution. I am trying to determine whether the ACE price can justify the benefits seeing as we anyway have slb in the current 6500 IOS. We are really not that big an organisation. I do know about the SSL offload and the webcache, which would both be nice-to-have's.

Are there any other ACE features which really justify the cost?

Are there other organisations out there which are quite happy with IOS SLB for their Oracle implementations?

TIA

chrobrie · ‎01-30-2008

Hi,

At a high level an Oracle application is looking for the following services from a load balancer:

1) Ability to intercept and distribute traffic across the available APPL_TOP nodes

2) Monitor health of the nodes and overall environment.

3) Provide session persistence, typically cookie based but can be source IP driven if there is not a proxy

I believe IOS SLB will meet these requirements except for cookie persistence and support for server to server traffic flow.

I think IOS SLB will break an Oracle application such as EBS 11i or 12i when you ask it to load balance flows between servers. This communication is necessary, at least in 11i/12i environments. It is my understanding that IOS SLB can not balance flows in and out of the same interface.

If you look at ACE, it supports the requirements of the application and can provide the offload services you mentioned above. In addition, ACE can be virtualized so as your business grows and you need new load balancing services simply add a new context to ACE and reap the rewards.

Hope that helps, Chris