load balancers vs iis arr or a web application proxy (wa) for ha

IIS ARRANDWAP

What is LoadMaster?•Application delivery controller appliance

•Available as hardware appliance or virtual system

•Wide range of load balancing algorithms

• Can be deployed as highly available pairs

• Can switch traffic based on content

• Includes caching and compression

•Active Directory, RADIUS and two-factor authentication

• Free version available

Feature ComparisonFeatures LoadMaster IIS ARR WAP

Load Balancing Y Y1 Y1

HTTP based routing Y Y N

Server Name Indication Y Y N

Intrusion Protection Y N N

High Availability (HA Pair) Y N2 N2

GEO Functionality Y N N

1 – can load balance HTTP workloads only 2 – requires external mechanism to achieve HA

What is ARR?• IIS Extension designed for request routing (similar to

KEMP’s content switching but not as powerful)

• Performs load balancing functions for HTTP requests only

• Cookie based and host based affinity

• Six load balance algorithms

• Weighed RR, Weighed total Traffic, Least current request, Server variable hash, Query string hash, Request hash

• Requires external mechanism for high availability(NLB or HLB)

• Also provides caching functionality

What is WAP?• Web Application Proxy included with Windows Server

2012 R2

• ADFS is hard requirement for installation

• No basic or NTLM pre-authentication

• Requires external mechanism for high availability, no official guidance for HA exists

• No information on persistence and load balancing mechanisms

• Seems limited to HTTP based workloads only

• Very thin documentation