Performance Management

Consort will work with customers to achieve the optimal utilization of their leased or purchased equipment. Load balancing is used to properly apportion the work load amongst multiple CPUs, network interfaces, drives, databases, and other resources.

Advantages of Server Load Balancing

Load balancing is part of Consort's High Availability (HA) strategy. Having two or more computers handle the workload increases performance (speeding up the process), and the redundancy also provides fault tolerance; if one of the machines goes down, the other can still continue to function. Clients see the group of servers as a single virtual server, with one IP address.

Load balancing technologies are important to enterprise-level networks because of the mission-critical nature of servers such as those that provide a Web presence (and often, secure transaction services and database access) on the Internet or those that provide applications and data on a corporate intranet.

Local and Global Server Load Balancing

Local server load balancing involves assigning tasks to each processor in proportion to its performance.
Consort offers a local server load balancing service that can be thought of as a intra-datacenter solution, influencing server traffic between servers housed within a single datacenter for optimal performance. The local server load balancing service includes one or more load balancing switches to direct traffic between multiple servers housed within a single datacenter, local load balancing set-up and ongoing monitoring maintenance and support.
Global load balancing adds flexibility and adaptability to the network, so users always have access to applications and data--even if service to the primary data center is interrupted.
Consort also offers a global server load balancing service that provides load balancing between multiple servers located in multiple geographically dispersed datacenters. This service includes a load-balancing switch placed in each data center location, global load balancing setup and ongoing monitoring, management, and administration. If your organization has servers located in more than two (2) geographically dispersed datacenters, you will have the option to choose which site will be set-up for global server load balancing. Consort will provide recommendations for the most efficient set-up of the load balancing architecture that will provide the best traffic distribution and disaster recovery.

Load Capacity Testing

Full scale testing of your site in a matter of hours.

This optional web-based load testing service measures site response by generating traffic on the site that is equivalent to hundreds or thousands of users. It also identifies bottlenecks and capacity constraints prior to or following site deployment, or in preparation for a new advertising campaign.

Consort's performance experts will review the test results with you to identify transaction response times and bottlenecks between components of the network and servers. This provides you with the information needed to isolate and resolve performance problems and fine-tune your system to handle the expected load.

Load capacity testing is available on an individual basis or in packs of three or six to allow you to make changes and re-test. Emergency load testing is also available, within 24-hour advance notice.