Alteon Cluster Options


Introduction

Insufficient throughput and application downtime can severely disrupt business operations. Inadequate throughput slows down or blocks client access, causing frustrating delays and reducing customer satisfaction. This can drive clients to competitors and harm the company’s reputation. Simultaneously, application downtime halts operations, leading to financial losses, decreased productivity, and damaged credibility. Both issues impede seamless service delivery and employee efficiency, negatively impacting revenue and incurring additional costs for infrastructure and troubleshooting. Ensuring reliable throughput and minimizing downtime are crucial to maintaining operational integrity and competitive edge in today’s digital landscape.

Alteon, Radware’s Application Delivery Controller (ADC) is crucial for resolving the above-mentioned application issues. It uses High Availability (HA) mode to keep apps running smoothly by preventing downtime, and with the advanced clustering option to manage very high traffic changes, eliminating slowdowns. Alteon ensures that apps are both fast and reliable, even under heavy loads. In this blog, we will discuss High availability and Cluster modes.

High Availability modes of operation

Alteon’s High Availability (HA) modes are crucial to ensure seamless and reliable application performance. They minimize downtime by clustering Alteon units, enabling immediate failover if one fails due to power outage, network malfunction or any other issue, and protecting against hardware or software issues that could disrupt services. Alteon’s High Availability (HA) mode is available on both physical platforms and in virtual platforms, VA (Virtual Appliance).

Alteon supports 2 HA modes:

Switch Mode (Active – Standby) ─ In this mode, there is a redundancy between the platforms, redundancy between 2 platforms or between up to 4 platforms, known as Extended mode. In Switch mode, one platform is active and controls the entire traffic, while the other platforms are in standby mode and take control only when the primary platform fails. To avoid any down time, Alteon Stateful failover ensures that traffic can continue without interruption. This is achieved by mirroring session state and persistence data to the standby Alteon, allowing the standby Alteon to continue forwarding traffic on existing connections, and ensuring persistence for new connections.

Alteon Cluster Options – HA Active – Stand by, HA Active-Active, 2-Tier Cluster, Auto scale Custer

Switch mode HA is available not only for physical platforms but also for virtual appliances, Alteon VA, in the public clouds – AWS, Azure and GCP. In a cloud environment, Radware Alteon can be set up in High Availability (HA) mode using a pair of Virtual Appliances (VAs). Configured with one as the primary and the other as the backup, this setup ensures resilience. If the primary ADC VA encounters a failure, the backup instantly assumes control, maintaining uninterrupted service by becoming the new primary platform.

Service mode (Active – Active) ─ Also known as Active-Active mode, as both platforms are active and both process services separately. In normal operation, certain services can be active on one platform, while the remaining services are active on the second platform. In an Alteon failure, an automatic and seamless failover transfers all services to a backup Alteon. This ensures continuous application and service availability without disruption, maintaining operational integrity and user experience.

Alteon Cluster Management

While HA prevents applications downtime, cluster management is handling both high availability and scale at the same time. Alteon 2-Tier Clusters can be fixed or dynamic. Dynamic clusters are suited for bursty sites while fixed cluster can be used where the traffic is steadier, and unplanned surges are less likely. The idea of the Alteon 2-tier cluster architecture is based on having a front-end layer 4 Load balancer (Alteon or cloud LB), and a cluster of Alteon (Physical platforms or VAs), doing the advanced L7/SSL processing.

Fixed Alteon 2-tier Cluster Management - This architecture is specially designed when there is a need to handle heavy load of data traffic in the most cost-effective way. Instead of using one or two very expensive high-end platforms, the user can deploy several low-cost platforms. On top of that by distributing traffic across multiple servers in the front-end layer, it optimizes server utilization and prevents bottlenecks.

Dynamic Alteon Auto-scaling cluster management - Alteon Cluster Management with a Global Elastic Licensing (GEL) model, combined with Radware Cyber Controller, allows for provisioning, management, and maintenance of Alteon auto-scaling clusters.

In practice, Alteon clusters start with a base configuration - perhaps two instances that meet initial traffic needs. As demand grows, the cluster automatically scales out by adding more instances using GEL licenses, efficiently distributing the load across them. This seamless scaling mechanism is powered by intelligent tools like the Radware Cyber Controller, which orchestrates the provisioning and management of ADC instances on VMware cloud infrastructure.

The cluster auto scaling benefits are profound: during unexpected traffic surges, additional Alteon instances are automatically provisioned, maintaining smooth application performance, and avoiding the bottlenecks that could degrade user experience. Once traffic normalizes, excess instances are gracefully decommissioned, optimizing resource utilization and reducing costs. This automated approach eliminates the manual intervention traditionally required to manage scaling, providing a more responsive and efficient solution to fluctuating workloads.

Moreover, auto scaling enhances fault tolerance by instantly redirecting traffic from failed nodes to healthy ones, maintaining continuous availability and service delivery. By leveraging these advanced capabilities, businesses can achieve superior performance, robust reliability, and a seamless user experience, solidifying their competitive edge in the digital landscape.

In conclusion

In today's digital landscape, insufficient throughput and application downtime can devastate business operations. Slow or blocked client access not only frustrates customers but can also drive them to competitors, tarnishing your reputation. Radware’s Alteon ADC offers a powerful solution, leveraging High Availability (HA) to prevent downtime and advanced clustering to handle high traffic seamlessly. Alteon ensures your applications remain fast, reliable, and ready to deliver superior user experiences, even under heavy loads. Explore how High Availability and Cluster modes can safeguard your business.

How Radware can help your organization, reach out to us at: Radware Alteon solution information

Avi Katz

Avi Katz

Avi Katz is a senior product manager at Radware with over 30 years of experience leading product lines through all phases to achieve revenue goals and establish new revenue streams. He has extensive experience in a wide range of technologies and solutions, including networking, medical devices, IoT (internet of things), applications and home security. Avi has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and an MBA from Tel Aviv University.

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