Load Balancing ideas for multiple subnets/data centers

[maiksanftenberg]

I have a little bit of off topic question and maybe I find some ideas here.

We want to load balance between multiple DPs based on a ping, geographic region or what ever.
The network/VLAN structure we have at the moment is quite complex and creating network segments will not work for us.

The DPs them self have different DNS names, IP addresses and are in different Data Centers/VLANs.

Did anybody has an idea what kind of Load Balancer or solution could be used?

Cheers.

[freddie_cox]

Are you using a JDS or Fileshare DP?

If you're using a JDS or HTTP/S enabled distribution point, it would be fairly straight forward to treat this as any LB'ed web service. Fileshare wouldn't be much different, you just lose the ability to resume downloads if there is a connection disruption.

Links:
http://www.f5.com/pdf/products/big-ip-global-traffic-manager-ds.pdf
http://www.f5.com/pdf/deployment-guides/iapp-http-dg.pdf

[donmontalvo]

@freddie.cox curious about this part:

Fileshare wouldn't be much different, you just lose the ability to resume downloads if there is a connection disruption.

The resumable download feature is key for us, with clients on less-than-ideal connection (VPN, Wi-Fi, etc.).

Any idea if this was ever confirmed as an issue, or expected behavior?

Thanks,
Don

[freddie_cox]

@donmontalvo The resume feature requires the HTTP/S protocol in order to work as it isn't supported in SMB/AFP file shares. I've tried to find that in the documentation, but can't seem to put my finger on it at the moment.

You can still load balance SMB connections but since they don't support the resume feature it would just attempt to re-download the entire file.

[davidacland]

There was a presentation in the 2014 JNUC talking about a ping & API script that would set the nearest DP. I haven't tried it but it seems to fit your requirement pretty closely:

http://www.jamfsoftware.com/resources/jss-rest-api-the-key-to-a-better-nights-sleep/

[donmontalvo]

@freddie.cox nope, we would never ever advise AFP/SMB over HTTP, biggest reason is for the resumable downloads.

@davidacland many thanks will look at that this weekend.