SoftLayer Launches Global Server Load Balancing
New Service Leverages the Advantages of Geographic Diversity
October 6, 2008, Dallas, TX – SoftLayer Technologies has added Global Server Load Balancing to its robust portfolio of on-demand data center solutions, providing customers with a highly redundant fail-over solution that also helps decrease the distance between content and its final destination, improving service reliability and content delivery.
The Global Server Load Balancing service stores content and applications in a cluster of servers distributed across SoftLayer’s data center locations in Dallas, TX; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC. Hardware load balancers constantly monitor the clustered servers’ health. When a load balancer receives a request for content, it uses advanced algorithms to choose and direct the request to the healthiest server in the best location relative to where the content will be delivered.
"This is the power of our seamless infrastructure and geographic diversity intertwined. Regardless of their size or business, any of our customers can use it to improve their availability and performance," said Jacob Linscott, SoftLayer’s Director of Information Systems. "We are proud to continually find more ways to leverage our unique advantages to create industry-leading, enterprise-class services."
Businesses that host applications and services can use SoftLayer’s Global Server Load Balancing service to gain higher:
- Scalability—new servers can be added to clusters as content demands increase
- Availability—user requests are always routed to an available server
- Predictability—critical applications will remain available for user requests
The new service starts at $99.00 per month and includes service for 1 domain name and up to 8 web servers. It is fully manageable through SoftLayer’s industry-leading Customer Portal and API, and online order form. It joins additional SoftLayer services that utilize the company’s geographically diverse infrastructure, including the recently announced, geographically redundant Anycast DNS service. |
