Global server load balancing (GSLB)
Optimize end-user experience and improve network resilience—at a lower cost—with IBM® NS1 Connect GSLB, a new approach powered by DNS and real-time device performance data.
Inline GSLB solutions create a single point of failure that can easily lead to outages and downtime. Plus, they don’t have visibility into the performance of end-user connections.
NS1 Connect is disrupting GSLB with a new SaaS offering with end-to-end visibility and resilient connections. The powerful combination of an authoritative domain name system (DNS) and real-user monitoring (RUM) data deliver optimized application availability and performance. In addition, this gives you control over how your users connect—regardless of their geolocation—for an improved user experience.
Traditional GSLB approaches
Load balancing with a web application firewall (WAF) merely shifts the challenge of a single point of failure to a different point in the network connectivity chain. Similar to traditional load balancers, WAFs lack visibility into “last-mile” end-user connections where latency often lurks. And WAFs only handle http/https traffic, leaving other protocols unmanaged.
Using elastic load balancers (ELBs) or application load balancers (ALBs) from a cloud provider to perform GSLB through a round-robin setup lacks visibility into “last-mile” end-user connections. ELBs and ALBs are also specific to single-cloud environments, making it difficult to implement GSLB in hybrid- or multi-cloud architectures.
Building, deploying and maintaining an in-house GSLB solution enables you to customize application delivery and workloads to your specific business needs. That said, it’s also expensive, time-consuming, requires skillsets most network teams don’t have and creates continuity issues when team members leave.
NS1 Connect GSLB
Traditional GSLB solutions
Consistent, predictable pricing metrics that scale with the success of your app
Unpredictable licensing and appliance refresh costs that hit regardless of app success
Per query pricing = paying for what you actually use
Capacity-based pricing = paying for what you think you’ll use
Scale up and down without reprovisioning, reconfiguration or additional personnel resources
Constant reprovisioning and reconfiguration hampers scaling while adding to total cost of ownership
Pure OpEx
Mixture of CapEx and OpEx funds
*Prices shown are indicative, may vary by country, exclude any applicable taxes and duties, and are subject to product offering availability in a locale.
GSLB advantages
Use RUM data to load balance connections all the way out to the end-user, lowering network latency, improving availability, response times, and application performance. IBM’s community RUM data sources are constantly updated across a global user base.
NS1 Connect GSLB eliminates single points of failure in traditional load balancers by balancing loads from the beginning of a DNS request on the end-user's device. It makes the service more resilient by eliminating any network traffic bottlenecks and dependencies in the recursion chain.
Delivered entirely through the cloud, NS1 Connect GSLB offers significant discounts compared to third-party load balancing solutions, cloud-based ELBs, web application firewalls (WAFs) and in-house solutions. Predictable SaaS pricing means avoiding constant appliance upgrades, maintenance and replacement costs.
The NS1 Connect GSLB solution is built using an API-first architecture, making it easy to integrate into existing automated processes. Support for automation platforms including Terraform and Ansible make it even easier to implement GSLB at scale.
NS1 Connect makes it easy to implement GSLB across your entire enterprise. With simple, self-serve onboarding (or professional migration services if you need them), NS1 Connect can get you up and running in no time.
Experience the specific benefits of GSLB while keeping your traditional load balancers in place. NS1 Connect integrates seamlessly with your existing load balancers, enhancing existing load balancing capabilities with RUM data.
Related use cases
Keep revenue-generating apps and websites online all the time with resilient, reliable DNS connections.
Improve application performance by identifying DNS misconfigurations, getting ahead of NXDOMAIN spikes, and tracking the early indications of DDoS attacks.
Resources
Get an overview of how GSLB from IBM NS1 Connect extends GSLB functionality and improves user experience while reducing load balancing costs.
Learn more about real user monitoring (RUM) data, which the IBM NS1 Connect GSLB solution leverages to optimize user connections for performance and reliability.