[SGVLUG] Software-Based Load Balancer?

Tue Apr 4 11:52:54 PDT 2006

On 4/4/06, sean at seanodonnell.com <sean at seanodonnell.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Has anyone tried any software-based Load Balancers?
>
> My web server (@ home) has been running pretty sluggish for the past few days,
> and it appears to be a RAM issue...
>
> Mem:    515444k total,   510692k used,     4752k free,     3468k buffers
>
> I've optimized all running (server application) processes to the minimal of my
> requirements, but it's still at < 5000k/free, so I'll be adding another 512mb
> stick to relieve the suffering for now.
>
> I'd (ideally) like to setup a (poor-man's) load-balanced environment, but I have
> to do more research before I go mangling my network infrastructure.
>
> I found the following project, but have never heard of anyone using it (or any
> other software-based load balancers for that matter), so I wasn't sure if I
> should consider it or not...
>
> Pure Load Balancer - A free high-performance (software-based) load balancer for
> Unix. http://plb.sunsite.dk/

Never heard of it.

> I've heard good and bad (some even horror) stories about software-RAID, so I was
> curious as to the pros/cons of using a software-based Load Balancer for Apache.

Linux software raid is alot of times faster then hardware raid. Works
great for me.

> Anyone have any input to share?

LVS (www.linuxvirtualserver.org) which is pretty mature.