Exchange 2010 Network Load Balancing with Netscaler VPX

Until this point I have only been exposed to the Big-IP F5 range of load balancing products used with my previous Exchange 2010 installations. A change in employment has also brought me to a  new organisation where funding for infrastructure is tighter however high availability requirement remains.

After some sound advice from suppliers I have began a trial of the Citrix NetScaler VPX virtual load balancer and thus far I have been impressed. All of the features I have used in the F5 range are available and then some. Thus far the only issue I have found is the information provided by Citrix on how to configure their product for exchange 2010 is not up to date. Relying on community Blog posts, configuring the Load Balancer has not been too difficult. I will say that without expert advice on how to avoid the gotcha's associated with the product, one might spend a substantial amount of time attempting to configure a feature in a unsupported manner. This however was also the case with our F5's I previously worked on.

We have not began our migration from Exchange 2003 yet so with only 4 users testing the exchange system performance opinions have not been formed however using the Microsoft Exchange 2010 Load Generator, the 200mbs licenced product has easily coped with a suitably configured test.

I will update this post with further findings as the migration progresses.

Exchange Blog out of MothBalls

I know's its been a while, but having a child does that to you. The spare 30mins to put pen to paper so to speak is replaced with sleeping and surviving. Additionally until recently my role had changed and I had been forced into Active Directory Management moving my focus away from Exchange.

After a change of Employment I am back on the exchange track and will be posting a few more thoughts here in the future.