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Link Balancer Benefits
Elfiq Link Balancers can impact businesses and organizations in a very positive way, here are key benefits any customer of Elfiq Networks will experience:
Performance | Business Continuity | Cost Reduction and Management | Technology Independence
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Elfiq Link Balancer products enable the use of multiple ISP or private WAN links concurrently without having to reconfigure the devices on the external part of a network (routers, firewalls, etc.), enabling higher performance and throughput for all forms of traffic. The Elfiq units will proactively balance traffic across all available links based on corporate standards and policies to deliver optimal results.
Adding multiple concurrent ISP links lets organizations significantly enhance productivity, customer service and the overall experience of Web-based applications. Elfiq’s traffic segmentation approach makes it possible to route certain traffic types on certain links to use them optimally and prevent traffic congestion.
Elfiq’s QoS technology enables organizations to easily maximize the full potential of each link by promoting and demoting traffic types to ensure each key application has the opportunity to operate with the expected performance. Less significant traffic such as leisure, peer to peer or media applications can be contained to a maximum level of bandwidth, preventing the saturation of bandwidth from non-critical sources. |
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By enabling the concurrent use of multiple ISP and private links, organizations break their dependency on a single provider and/or a single link provider technology. Should a link managed by the Elfiq unit fail, the Elfiq unit will proceed with an automatic seamless failover of traffic on all other available links based on policies defined by customers.
To ensure continuity, Elfiq enables the use of multiple concurrent ISP technologies seamlessly and transparently. When link failures occur, organizations need to be able to provide a proactive alternative route for traffic, and diversifying technologies is a key method for ensuring uptime.
The Elfiq units let organizations use any type of link (IP), from the very commonly available T1s/E1s, DSL, and DS3s to utility fiber links, satellite links, cable modems, mobile telephone networks (Ev-DO, HSDPA, etc.), 4G WiMax mobile networks and more. With a diversified mix of links, when a certain type of carrier is unavailable, others are there to continue passing traffic. |
The Elfiq units enable the use of multiple concurrent ISP links, including low-cost DSL and cable modem links, so organizations can stop depending on a single contract to operate their WAN resources and can reduce costs. Here is an example of cost reduction:
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Customer has 3 T1 links at $750/month, providing 3X 1.544Mbps symmetric traffic
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An alternative plan could include:
- Removal of two T1 links
- Addition of two DSL links at $75/month , providing 5Mbps/1mbps of throughput per link
- Addition of two cable modem links at $100/month, providing 6Mbps/1Mbps of traffic per link.
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The benefits of such an change in the current WAN infrastructure include:
- Cost reduction, from $27,000/year to $13,200/year—a savings of $13,800/year in bandwidth costs
- Overall performance increase from 4.632Mbps/4.632Mbps to 23.544Mbps/5.544Mbps, providing significant performance improvement.
The Elfiq units operate on Layer-2 of the OSI model, enabling technology independence for multiple assets of WAN operations:
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Perimeter device independence: with its Layer-2 approach, the Elfiq unit is a drop-in installation which requires no modifications to any device it will be interacting with, including routers, firewalls, switches, WAN accelerators/packet shapers, HSIA systems and much more. Should the Elfiq unit be removed, the cables simply need to be reconnected in their prior state, and services will operate normally without any logical modifications.
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DNS independence: Elfiq’s unique approach to inbound service balancing and failover does not require the migration of the DNS server(s) onto the link balancer, enabling the use of existing DNS assets and providing a much quicker implementation without the risks of migrating DNS servers.
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ISP independence: Elfiq products work with IP links from any ISP or private WAN link, regardless of the carrier or the technology used. All the Elfiq unit requires is an Ethernet connection, and on the LB-4000E, Elfiq also offers SFP connectors. This approach empowers customers to choose which ISPs, which ISP technologies and the number of links they wish to utilize.
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