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Hardware or Software Load Balancer

910302
910302 Member Posts: 3
edited Jan 26, 2012 9:46PM in EPM System Infrastructure
Hi all,

We're looking to have two OHS servers at the top layer which we then want to load balance using a DNS Alias. Does anyone have any recommendations or useful reading materials on choosing between software and hardware load balancers? I've seen and maintained Hyperion implementations that successfully using both, but would like to understand the pros/cons of each approach.

Also, does anyone know of any recommendations from Oracle on which approach with Hyperion / configuration recommendations when using Load balancers? The EPM High Availability guide 11.1.2.1 doesn't say much about load balancers sitting above the OHS layer

Thanks
Nick
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Answers

  • Kash Mohammadi-Oracle
    Kash Mohammadi-Oracle Member Posts: 17 Employee
    There is a Oracle development recommanded model which is documented here: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/epm-deploy-guide11121-1401625.pdf
    Kash Mohammadi-Oracle
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  • 910302
    910302 Member Posts: 3
    Thanks Kash, however this only refers to load balancers generally. Thinking on it, this is less of a Oracle/Hyperion issue and more to do with hardware generally so its unlikely there will be Oracle materials.

    If anyone knows of comparisions somewhere on the internet generally between hardware/software (Hyperion related or otherwise)...

    Thanks
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  • John A Booth
    John A Booth Member Posts: 1,508
    Hi Nick,

    The big problem with round-robin DNS is if one of your OHS nodes goes down every other user will head a bad URL. A hardware load balancer when setup properly will have much more intelligence and can sense if a site is down and automatically send all requests to the online node. Higher end hardware load balancers usually offer features like SSL Offloading and content compression.

    This being said there are real costs for hardware load balancer which can run into the 10's of thousands of dollars if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

    You may also want to review the content available at: http://www.loadbalancing.org/

    If you are looking for something in between round-robin DNS and a true hardware load balancer take a look at Linux LVS at: http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org/ -- this does require a bit of linux knowledge.

    Regards,

    John A. Booth
    http://www.metavero.com
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