Load Balancing

What is intelligent link load balancing / traffic management?
Intelligent link load balancing is the process of measuring and controlling the communications (traffic, packets) on the Internet (WANs) to avoid overburdening network links, which would result in network congestion and poor performance. Link load balancing using a WAN link controller redirects network traffic from links that are congested or down, to functioning links with the required capacity to deliver traffic effectively. This is an inherent function within a WAN link controller, but not provided by a dual WAN router.
For more information, see WAN Traffic Management with PowerLink.

Why is both inbound and outbound (bi-directional) load balancing and failover important?
Inbound link load balancing prevents congestion and slow performance from affecting your incoming customers and partners when accessing applications from your site. Inbound failover allows for these groups to always connect with these services (web services, mail, ftp, ERP, etc.) regardless of fluctuations or outages being experienced by your ISP.

Outbound link load balancing and Internet failover allows employees and internal users on your LAN to always reach outside resources with the maximum amount of bandwidth and capacity.

What are T1 and T3 links?
"T" links are high-capacity Internet connections leased from ISPs and other service providers to businesses who need high-capacity, high-availability Internet connections. However, scalability and excess capacity are issues with T links, since a business may need more capacity than a single T link provides, but much less than two links provide. When businesses need more bandwidth, an ISP may require them to lease a second link, leading to wasteful spending on unneeded capacity. Bandwidth aggregation using a WAN link controller provides a far more cost-effective solution by deploying multiple low-cost broadband connections such as DSL, cable, fiber and others.

What are low-cost links?
These are typically broadband links used by home users or small-to-medium sized enterprises. These links can include DSL, wireless, fractional T1, cable, ISDN and others. These links are considerably less expensive than T1 and T3 links, but lack the capacity and reliability of more expensive links. WAN link controllers allow businesses to use any type of links, so incrementally adding capacity is easy and inexpensive. A business that needs more capacity than a single T1 link, but less than a T3 provides, can easily add DSL or cable links to meet their needs and be assured that the WAN link controller will direct traffic among all links to provide reliable and high-performance connectivity over the Internet - where network traffic is automatically directed to the optimal links. Click here to learn more about gaining a quick return on investment using WAN link controllers and low cost links.

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