Re: Zeus ZXTM?

just a couple of comments—again, without knowing the specific situation:

 

dual-core, 2GB of RAM (with unknown port config) vs. dual quads, 32GB of RAM with 10Gb interfaces?  I sure hope there was some performance increase (at least 4x at a minimum).    You don’t mention what version of software, but that hardware platform was announced 4.5 years ago; heck, I was still a field engineer when that came out.

 

Which brings me to your comment about paperweights—you are right that when you invest in a hardware platform, there is sunk costs in the hardware appliance.  But you are glossing over a couple of points that are key to many people consistently willing to do just that:

 

1.       You still invest in hardware—perhaps not as much as a dedicated, purpose-built appliance, but you do still have capitalized hardware costs; and

2.       You have limited availability to use hardware compression and hardware-based SSL offload or other potential solutions.  While there are solutions (at least on the SSL front), this too is additional capitalized hardware costs which either add significantly to the cost of building your own hardware and/or can negatively impact performance; and

3.       Lastly, there is something to be said for having the hardware and software integrated and supported by the same company.  I’m not saying that anyone has bad support, what I’m saying is that—as many PC support companies have learned—it’s near impossible to keep up with all the possible hardware configurations someone might use.  Even if you use the virtual appliance, you now also add a hypervisor which requires investment in licenses as well as training and yet another point of support.

 

So, yes, I agree that you are paying a premium for an appliance.  I also agree that for some people/situations it is not worth it to do so.  But, many people I have talked to have found that there overall savings (when taking into account all asset costs, training, management, etc.) don’t come out nearly as lopsided as it might appear on the surface.  I’d also point out that some of the new chassis-based hardware platforms have a potential for giving customers a best-of-both-worlds solution—a dedicated, purpose built platform that can also provide the upgradability needed to keep up with changing demands and newer technology.

 

Again—every situation is fairly unique—so I’m not saying an appliance is best in every situations—just like I’m not saying that software or virtual images are the best solution in every situation.  I just want to be clear that there ARE situations where the premium is well worth it.

 


KJ (Ken) Salchow, Jr. | Manager, Technical Marketing


D 651.423.1133

M 612.868.12588

P 206.272.5555

F 206.272.5555

 <http://www.f5.com/> www.f5.com

 

 

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Zak Thompson
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 9:11 AM
To: Load Balancing Mailing List
Subject: Re: [load balancing] Zeus ZXTM?

 

We replaced our F5 6800's for two intel dual quads with 32g ram and 10g ethernet running ZXTM.  F5 was lacking in performance on large file downloads and was having a very very hard time pushing 1+Gbps even with F5's engineers trying to figure out how to make it better.

 

We have been very pleased with Zeus's performance and have been very happy to make the change over to ZXTM and would HIGHLY recommend it.  Your making a software investment which you can move to bigger/better servers and not one into a paperweight since the F5 is a hardware appliance you are limited to the functionality it handles.

 

Cheers,

Zak Thompson

Yellow Fiber Networks

 

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 8:55 AM
To: Load Balancing Mailing List
Subject: Re: [load balancing] Zeus ZXTM?

 

I tested Zeus ZXTM and it worked well for me, and it can do pretty much everything an F5 LTM will do and had something that had basic iRules functionality.

But a new F5 BIG-IP 1600 is under $20k, so ZXTM won't really save you much money (based on the last time I got prices out of them).

Regards,
Vince





"Julian Grunnell" <[email protected]> 
Sent by: [email protected]

07/08/2009 06:37 AM


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[load balancing] Zeus ZXTM?

 

		




Hi – has anyone any experience, good or bad of using Zeus ZXTMor  ZXTM LB? We almost exclusively use F5 LTM’s at present and have been asked to look at Zeus as an alternative for some setups.

Thanks – Julian.

Julian Grunnell
UNIX Systems Administrator (Leeds)
Webfusion

Tel: 0208 587 7212
Mob: 07803 649593
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