University of Northampton selects Kemp load balancers for overall performance and value

The University of Northampton has installed Kemp load balancing appliances to improve the performance and resilience of its Library Services authentication for students and Microsoft Exchange 2010 Servers, supporting a staff of over 2,000. The Kemp LoadMaster 3600 appliances make sure that the University’s 14,000+ students always have fast and efficient access to single sign-on for worldwide academic databases and that staff have a resilient and reliable link to their email.

Based in the heart of England, the University of Northampton is globally renowned in waste management, leather technology and fashion, and aims to be the top university in the UK for social enterprise by 2015.

“The University has been growing rapidly and we need to make sure that our students always have access to online resources and staff have improved email facilities,” said Steve Slade, data centre manager at the University of Northampton. “We have seen immediate benefits from the Kemp LoadMasters with significant increases in system performance and availability. We previously used software for our server load balancing, which lacked functionality and speed.  When we compared well-known load balancer hardware appliances, we found that Kemp LoadMaster products offered the best combination of performance and value for money."

The server load balancers were supplied and installed by Kemp Centre reseller and education specialist System Professional, who also provided technical advice, including how to get the most out of using Kemp load balancers with Microsoft Exchange 2010.

“Microsoft is increasingly recommending the use of load balancing when migrating to Exchange 2010 Server,” said Wayne Emerson, System Professional's commercial director. “As the Exchange Client Access Server (CAS) is used to handle all client connections, load balancing ensures that email users do not suffer poor performance by automatically re-routing and reconnecting users to functioning servers and off-loading SSL processing.”

“Universities and colleges face the same challenges as SMEs with complex IT infrastructures and users that require 24x7 support,” said Emerson. “We have a strong track record in the education sector and have recently installed Kemp load balancers at the University of Essex and Chelmsford College.” 

“Traditionally, the cost of load balancing has made it difficult for most educational establishments and SMEs to adopt,” said George Zervos, UK Manager at Kemp. “We quickly recognised the growing demand for affordable solutions and our LoadMaster appliances start from £1,620.00, yet integrate powerful, stable, full-featured application delivery and server load balancing with the latest advancements in layer-7 content switching and SSL acceleration technologies.”

Kemp also offers a range of Virtual LoadMaster (VLM) products from just £1,180.00 for both Microsoft Hyper-V or VMw are virtualised environments that are certified by Microsoft for use with Exchange 2010 and significantly improve the performance, scalability and availability of applications running on virtual machines.