Application Delivery Controller (ADC) by A10 Networks includes features ranging from traditional load-balancing or advanced Web Application Firewall (WAF) to centralized application performance monitoring (APM).
SSL Insight And Load Balancing For Thunder ADC
Customers are using load balancing for more than just TCP and UDP services. They are looking for higher layers in the protocol stack for service enhancement. Alex allows operators to control application traffic fully. It will enable manipulation and virtual patching of the communication path for protocols such as HTTP, SIP, RADIUS, and DNS.
A10 Networks, Inc. provides networking solutions in the Americas, Japan, other Asia Pacific, and EMEA countries. The company offers Thunder Application Delivery Controller (ADC) that provides advanced server load balancing; Lightning ADC, a cloud-native software-as-a-service platform to boost the delivery and security of applications and microservices; and Thunder Carrier Grade Networking product, which offers standards-compliant address and protocol translation services for service provider networks. It also provides Thunder Threat Protection System (TPS) for the protection of networks and server resources against massive distributed denial of service attacks; Thunder Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Insight solution that decrypts SSL-encrypted traffic and forwards it to a third-party security device for deep packet inspection; and Thunder Convergent Firewall, which addresses various critical security capabilities in one package by consolidating various security and networking functions in a single appliance. In addition, the company offers intelligent management and automation tools comprising harmony controller that provides intelligent management, automation, and analytics for secure application delivery in multi-cloud environment; and aGalaxy TPS, a multi-device network management solution. A10 Networks, Inc. delivers its solutions on optimized hardware appliances, bare metal software, containerized software, virtual appliances, and cloud-native software. It serves cloud providers; service providers include cloud, telecommunications, and multiple system and cable operators; government organizations; and enterprises in the technology, industrial, retail, financial, gaming, and education industries. The company markets its products through sales organizations, as well as distribution channel partners, including distributors, value added resellers, and system integrators. A10 Networks, Inc. was incorporated in 2004 and is headquartered in San Jose, California. (Source: Seeking Alpha)
A10's Application Delivery Controllers, an evolution of traditional server load balancers (SLBs), ensure that customer data center applications and networks remain highly available, accelerated, and secure. Application availABIlity enables your Web and key infrastructure servers to scale and seamlessly redirect users in the event of an outage, using core advanced layer 4-7 load balancing and application health-checks. Acceleration capabilities provide fast and responsive service to your customers while reducing infrastructure server requirements, using features such as SSL offload, RAM caching, compression and TCP reuse. Security protection services are provided against advanced and emerging attacks for uninterrupted operations, with capabilities including Web and DNS application firewalls (WAF and DAF), application access management (AAM), SSL Insight and firewall load balancing (FWLB).
All A10 ADCs have advanced capabilities such as customized traffic transformation with our aFleX scripting tool, a comprehensive RESTful management API (aXAPI) enabling automated provisioning and support for multi-data center global server load balancing (GSLB). A10 has a broad portfolio of ADCs, including our high-performance Thunder and AX Series ADCs as well as our virtual and hybrid ADCs vThunder and Thunder HVA, providing a wide choice of form factors and deployment OPTions. Built on the Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS) with an advanced application networking feature set, A10 ADCs can achieve operational efficiency and high performance in a compact solution.
The A10 Networks' Thunder series supports SSL/TLS acceleration features, which offloads processing from application servers to application delivery and server load balancing functions. Supporting various protocols, including HTTP/HTTPS and FIX, this solution provides users with a secure and high performance experience. A10 Thunder series integrates with Entrust nShield HSMs to enable robust management and protection of the keys used for SSL/TLS acceleration.
Amazon's Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) provides both Layer 4 and Layer 7 functionality, which is divided into two different products. The Application Load Balancer handles Layer 7 work, and the Network Load Balancer handles Layer 4 work. Both operate only in the AWS cloud environment and are task-oriented. Although the ELB provides load balancing, it doesn't offer application acceleration, WAF or DDoS protection. However, AWS does offer a separate WAF that can be used in conjunction with ELB. And for older, legacy applications built in the Elastic Compute Cloud-classic network, AWS offers the Classic Load Balancer.
The Avi Vantage Platform provides elastic load balancing and web application security on a per-application basis. The company's ADCs also offer Layer 4 through Layer 7 services to containerized applications running in cloud environments.
NGINX is unique among the load balancers in this roundup in that it's the only product that's built on and offered as an open source Layer 4 through Layer 7 platform. The commercial version, NGINX Plus, offers additional functionality, the most important of which is session persistence. This would be required for e-commerce use. For basic load balancing, the open source version should be sufficient for many customers.
The Radware product line dates back to one of the earliest load balancing pioneers -- Alteon Networks. The Alteon NG product line features appliance-based and virtualized offerings that provide rich Layer 4 through Layer 7 functionality. Radware offers additional functionality that encompasses what it calls web performance optimization, its AppWall WAF, and other security and monitoring functions.
A10 Networks Thunder ADC supplies L4-7 load balancing with numerous layers of security using DNS and web app firewalls, comprehensive support for advanced encryption, single sign-on (SSO) authentication, and high-performance Perfect Forward Secrecy and Error Correction Code (PFS/ECC). Thunder ADC is designed upon A10 Networks Advanced Core Operating System (ACOSÂ) platform to provide consistent, efficient application performance and trusted security for any environment.
Radware Alteon is an application delivery controller (ADC) solution that provides global load balancing for all web, cloud and mobile-based applications. The solution is designed to help your organization simplify operations while ensuring resilience and SLA. It manages application traffic across both data and cloud center locations, optimizing availability and performance. In addition, Radware Alteon integrates multiple application protection services to provide protection against an array of cyberthreats.
A10 Networks Thunder ADC is ranked 12th in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 4 reviews while Radware Alteon is ranked 7th in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 10 reviews. A10 Networks Thunder ADC is rated 8.0, while Radware Alteon is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of A10 Networks Thunder ADC writes "Easy to set up with good features and great reliability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Radware Alteon writes "Great load-balancing services and multiple backend servers, but it would be great if it had script-sharing features in a community hub". A10 Networks Thunder ADC is most compared with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), Citrix NetScaler, NGINX Plus, Fortinet FortiADC and Avi Networks Software Load Balancer, whereas Radware Alteon is most compared with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), Citrix NetScaler, Radware LinkProof, HAProxy and Fortinet FortiADC. See our A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Radware Alteon report.
But before heading into the future, let's look at how we got here. Network-based load balancing is the essential foundation upon which ADCs operate. In the mid-1990s, the first load balancing hardware appliances began helping organizations scale their applications by distributing workloads across servers and networks. These first devices were application-neutral and resided outside of the application servers themselves, which means they could load balance using straightforward network techniques. In essence, these devices would present a "virtual IP address" to the outside world, and when users attempted to connect, they would forward the connection to the most appropriate real server doing bi-directional network address translation (NAT).
However, with the advent of virtualization and cloud computing, a new iteration of load balancing ADCs arrived as software-delivered virtual editions intended to run on hypervisors. Today, virtual appliances can deliver application services with the same breadth of features as those that run on purpose-built hardware. In addition, these virtual editions eliminate much of the complexity involved in moving application services between virtual, cloud, and hybrid environments, allowing organizations to quickly and easily spin up application services in private or public cloud environments.
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