Top 3 Reasons to Hardware Load Balance Exchange 2013

Exchange 2013 has brought some fundamental changes to the way clients connect to the Client Access services. The most important and noticeable change is the removal of the RPC client access service. Client connectivity is now handled entirely through RPC over HTTPS a feature most should be familiar with from Exchange 2010 known as Outlook Anywhere.

1. The first and most important reason to use a hardware load balancer with Exchange 2013 is not so subtly disguised within the very name itself in that a load balancer is designed to balance. A load balancer ensures that traffic is distributed between all of the Exchange servers in a manner that is entirely configurable whether that is evenly between all of the systems or on a weight based system. Some of the balancing methods a Kemp LoadMaster is capable of are Weighted Round Robin, Least Connection, and even an Agent-based Adaptive method. All of these methods are not something that Exchange 2013 would be capable of without using a hardware load balancer.
2. Another reason to use a hardware load balancer with Exchange 2013 is the high availability of individual Exchange 2013 Client Access services. When using other solutions to direct traffic to the Exchange 2013 Client Access services the determination of what services are available is a very basic up or down determination. If one or any of the services are not functional on a single server that server and its services are considered to be down. With a hardware load balancer these services can be monitored on an individual basis. For example if Outlook Web App is down on one server it can still be utilized for other services such as Exchange ActiveSync. This allows for more efficient use of all of the Exchange roles that have been deployed into the organization.
3. A hardware load balancer can offer more than just load balancing for the Exchange 2013 environment. Taking advantage of features such as Kemp’s Edge Security Pack a hardware load balancer can become a multi-purpose appliance. Some of the features that can be offered are pre-authentication and single sign on for the remote Exchange 2013 users providing security to the organization that was once provided by additional products. This allows for coverage of more of the organization’s requirements with a single appliance.

A hardware load balancer can offer more than just load balancing for the Exchange 2013 environment. Taking advantage of features such as Kemp’s Edge Security Pack a hardware load balancer can become a multi-purpose appliance. Some of the features that can be offered are pre-authentication and single sign on for the remote Exchange 2013 users providing security to the organization that was once provided by additional products. This allows for coverage of more of the organization’s requirements with a single appliance.