Load Balancing AWS with Progress Kemp LoadMaster

The move to cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) doesn’t remove the need to optimize the application experience. IT teams still need to configure the AWS cloud infrastructure to maximize performance and availability.

One key aspect of this is the design and placement of load balancers. In the same way that load balancers help deliver an optimal experience for on-premises deployment, this remains true for cloud deployment. While AWS offers a few options for load balancing, many organizations have invested in Progress Kemp LoadMaster and want to use their existing expertise when deploying application workloads in AWS. LoadMaster is available on AWS and is fully compatible with AWS deployment. Read on to find out more.

Introduction to AWS Load Balancing

As mentioned above, moving on to a cloud platform such as AWS doesn’t negate the need to load balance the services in use. As the workloads deployed in the cloud grow in complexity and demand, effective load balancing becomes crucial to maintaining optimal performance, scalability and reliability. Load balancing in AWS involves distributing incoming traffic across multiple resources, such as EC2 instances or containers, to prevent overload and maintain a more seamless user experience.

AWS offers several options to deliver load-balancing. Each is slightly different and will require staff with expertise in how they work to get the maximal performance and benefits for your AWS workloads. Any expertise built up in these AWS load-balancing solutions will not be transferable to other cloud platforms. In the increasingly multi-cloud environments that many organizations of all sizes now operate, this will mean that IT staff will need to know the vagaries of several different native load balancers provided by cloud platforms.

Benefits of Load Balancing in AWS

Implementing load balancing in AWS offers the same benefits IT teams know from load balancing on-premises infrastructure. By distributing incoming traffic across multiple AWS resources, cloud load balancing enhances scalability, allowing applications to handle increased user demand more seamlessly. Doing so improves resource utilization by evenly distributing the workload, thereby preventing any single cloud service or virtual machine in AWS from getting overwhelmed. Load balancing also minimizes downtime by automatically redirecting traffic away from busy or unresponsive cloud resources. This delivers high availability and a consistent user experience.

Overview of Progress Kemp LoadMaster

Using LoadMaster across all your on-premises and cloud platform deployments solves the issue of IT staff needing to become experts in multiple load balancer solutions.

LoadMaster can be deployed from the AWS Marketplace or deployed in a virtual machine in AWS. When running in AWS, LoadMaster has the same features, functionality and user interface that people have come to enjoy and rely on for on-premises deployments. This means that your IT System Admins can use the skills they have built up over many years. For organizations looking for a load-balancing solution to cover multiple deployment platforms, adopting LoadMaster means that they can become an expert with a single solution. This has many benefits, such as reduced training costs and the opportunity to deploy to additional cloud platforms in the future without having to worry about learning a new load balancer.

Over 100,000 LoadMaster deployments are in use globally across cloud and on-premise infrastructure. Highly respected across the industry for performance, scalability and security features, LoadMaster is an ideal choice for AWS.

On AWS, LoadMaster offers the same feature set as it does everywhere else, including intelligent traffic distribution, health monitoring, TLS (SSL) offloading, strong authentication, enhanced security monitoring and comprehensive analytics. The smooth integration LoadMaster has with AWS services makes it an ideal choice for any organization deploying workloads in AWS, across multiple clouds and for hybrid deployment models.

Integration and Configuration in AWS

Deploying LoadMaster in AWS is as straightforward as using any of the native AWS options. Basically, the process requires you to launch a LoadMaster instance from AWS Marketplace and then configure the instance as needed. With the same UI and scripting interfaces available for on-premises deployments, the deployment on AWS will be simple for existing LoadMaster administrators.

Here is a list of the steps that IT teams should follow when deploying a LoadMaster in AWS. This is not a detailed guide but rather the basic steps you need to follow. The detailed configuration will vary for each deployment and for the applications that need load balancing.

1. Deploy Kemp LoadMaster in AWS

• Launch an EC2 instance and select Kemp LoadMaster from the AWS Marketplace.
• Configure the instance settings, including VPCs, subnet, security groups and more. For details, see the documentation at Installation Guide LoadMaster for AWS.

2. Complete basic instance configuration

• Access the Kemp LoadMaster interface via the public IP address of the instance.
• Set up initial settings, including network configuration, admin credentials and licensing.

3. Configure load balancing setup

• Define virtual services for the applications.
• Associate real servers with the virtual services configured on LoadMaster.
• Set health check parameters to monitor the availability of the real servers being load balanced.

4. Optimize the LoadMaster and servers to deliver prime performance

• Use the LoadMaster templates and best practices for specific applications to deliver optimal performance for each application or web service.
• Change the load-balancing algorithms used based on traffic patterns and application requirements.

Each organization’s application landscape is unique. The above items are a guideline on the steps you need to take, but the details will vary for each deployment. The Progress Professional Services team can assist with deployment and with knowledge transfer to your IT team if required.

Best Practices for AWS Load Balancing

To get the best from load balancing with LoadMaster in AWS, you should consider and implement the following best practices where appropriate.

• Select the appropriate load-balancing algorithm based on your application’s requirements (e.g., round-robin, least connections or weighted distribution).
• Implement health checks to monitor the status of your resources and automatically route traffic away from servers or services with issues.
• Implement TLS/SSL offloading on load balancer instances to reduce the computational burden on backend application servers to improve overall performance.
• Implement TLS/SSL termination, web application firewalls and DDoS protection to enhance security.
• Analyze and regularly review load balancer logs and metrics to identify bottlenecks and then update configurations.
• Consider using auto-scaling in conjunction with load balancing to automatically adjust resource capacity based on demand.

Performance Monitoring and Optimization

To maintain an optimal load-balancing performance in AWS, it is essential to monitor key metrics and make data-driven optimizations. LoadMaster provides in-depth analytics and reporting capabilities, allowing administrators to gain insights into traffic patterns, resource utilization and potential bottlenecks.

By regularly reviewing these metrics and making informed adjustments to load-balancing configurations, organizations can continuously improve the performance and efficiency of their AWS workloads.

Real-World Case Studies

The use cases for AWS load balancing will be similar to those for on-premises deployments. The LoadMaster Resources site has an extensive selection of case studies, including one that outlines how Education First (EF) adopted Kemp LoadMaster for AWS to provide a better application experience to their large user base spread over 100 countries.

Examples of how organizations have deployed LoadMaster to enhance their application experience cover:

• Web applications - For basic web applications, LoadMaster load balancers can distribute incoming requests across multiple AWS server instances.
• Serverless applications - LoadMaster in AWS is well-suited for serverless architectures, where the cloud provider manages the underlying infrastructure, and the load balancer can automatically scale to handle traffic changes.
• Hybrid and multi-cloud environments – LoadMaster integrates more seamlessly across different environments is a considerable benefit when an organization has a hybrid infrastructure or uses multiple cloud providers. LoadMaster provides a consistent load-balancing solution to deliver unified management and policies across diverse environments and platforms, with system admins only having to learn one load-balancing solution and not several.
• Advanced traffic management - Compared to native cloud load balancers, LoadMaster provides more refined control over traffic routing and management. It supports advanced features to enable more sophisticated traffic handling based on specific application requirements.
• Enhanced security features - Some native cloud load balancer options offer only basic security features, but LoadMaster provides a more extensive security suite. This includes an advanced web application firewall, enhanced authentication options, an intrusion prevention system and advanced encryption options. With these options, LoadMaster delivers additional protection against various attacks and vulnerabilities.
• Compliance and data sovereignty - LoadMaster allows for greater control and visibility over the load-balancing infrastructure for organizations with strict compliance requirements or data sovereignty concerns. It enables organizations to deploy and manage load balancers within their own environment in a hybrid cloud setup while maintaining compliance with regulatory standards.
• Cost optimization - Deploying LoadMaster can be more economical than depending on native cloud load balancers in many scenarios. LoadMaster’s flexible licensing model and the capability to operate on multiple environments can provide better cost-efficiency, particularly for organizations with high traffic volumes or requiring advanced features.

Security Considerations

Load balancers play an important supporting security role in the current threat landscape. Cybersecurity needs to be a multi-tiered endeavor, with protection deployed at various logical and physical points.

LoadMaster offers advanced security features, such as SSL/TLS termination, intrusion prevention, enhanced authentication strategies and web application firewall capabilities. By implementing these security measures at the load balancer level, organizations can protect their applications from common vulnerabilities and attacks.

Comparative Analysis

LoadMaster provides measurable benefits compared to native AWS load balancing solutions such as AWS’s Application Load Balancer (ALB) and Network Load Balancer (NLB). The LoadMaster benefits include:

• More flexibility - LoadMaster supports fine-grained control and configuration across multiple network layers in a single tool with an easy-to-understand and cross-platform user interface.
• Cost savings - LoadMaster works out significantly more cost-effective than those that accumulate with the native load balancers after network and storage costs get factored in.
• Advanced feature set - LoadMaster is an industry-leading load balancer, and it has the features that decades of use have shown are needed to deliver a top-notch application experience. All LoadMaster features are available in the AWS deployable versions of LoadMaster. You are not getting a cut-down solution.

Future Trends and Considerations

As AWS workloads continue to evolve, load-balancing solutions must adapt to emerging trends and technologies. Containerization and microservices architectures are increasingly prevalent, requiring load balancers to handle dynamic and distributed workloads efficiently.

LoadMaster is well-positioned to address future challenges, with ongoing development and updates to support modern application architectures and emerging technologies where they make sense.

Integrating artificial intelligence machine learning techniques into load-balancing algorithms holds promise for even more intelligent and adaptive traffic management in the future.

Learn More

You can learn more about the LoadMaster range on AWS on our Load Balancing Application Experience in Amazon Web Services page.

We also held a recent webinar on using LoadMaster with AWS. The 40-minute webinar titled Load Balancing AWS with Progress Kemp LoadMaster is embedded below. It provides an excellent overview of using LoadMaster with AWS.

Final Thoughts

Load balancing is critical to optimizing AWS workloads for performance, scalability and reliability. While native cloud load balancers are fine for simple use cases, LoadMaster excels in scenarios that require more advanced capabilities, security and flexibility. By leveraging LoadMaster, organizations can achieve optimal application performance, scalability and security across AWS, including hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

LoadMaster offers a powerful and feature-rich solution that seamlessly integrates with AWS environments. By implementing best practices, monitoring performance metrics and staying ahead of emerging trends, organizations can use LoadMaster to maximize the performance and efficiency of their AWS deployments.