Proto Balance 1.15 is a Server Utility product from protonet.co.za, get 5 Stars SoftSea Rating, Proto Balance provides a method of spreading the load of a large number of clients across many servers. Like hardware load-balancing, it accepts many connections on a single IP address and redirects each client connection to a node in a cluster of services. However, where hardware load balancers usually work on the packet level and are expensive appliances, Proto Balance provides the same functionality on the TCP socket level, allowing Proto Balance to run as a light-weight program package on any existing hardware/OS combination.

Proto Balance allows management of your enterprise infrastructure through an elegant web interface. Proto Balance is a standalone program package that runs on all server operating system platforms. Enterprise cluster providers, Internet Service Providers, and network administrators can save time and money, and improve service availability using Proto Balance.

Throw away those clunky command-line interfaces! These outdated tools require costly training and are prone to mis-configuration. Proto Balance streamlines all your traffic management into one clear and concise web interface.

Understand how Proto Balance can streamline the management of your:
Network Traffic
Software deployments
Client-Server applications

Improve your operating efficiency and enable:
Fallover safety
Load balancing
Hot deployments

Proto Balance is meant to operate as the front-end server to a number of instances of a service within a cluster. Clients connect directly to Proto Balance. Their connections are transparently forwarded to an instance chosen by Proto Balance in a way that evenly distributes load across all instances.

Proto Balance does not change the contents of the traffic it is forwarding, but transparently forwards traffic between the client and the service instance so that both are unaware of the intermediary. In this way, Proto Balance is able to handle any type of service.

Some of the services Proto Balance is able to handle are:

* HTTP

* SMTP

* IMAP

* POP3

* IIOP

* T3

* Passive FTP

Proto Balance can be configured to forward the same client to the same instance every time that client reconnects. It does this by recording the clients' IP addresses. This is useful when client's state information does not migrate easily between instances of your cluster. Proto Balance will faithfully ensure that a client connects to the same instance even if the client has been disconnected for a long period of time.

When deciding what instance (i.e. node) to choose in the cluster, several load balancing algorithms are available. Proto Balance supports the following load balancing algorithms:

1. Round robin

2. Pure random

3. Connection-rate based

4. Traffic-rate based

5. By minimum load, using a custom load rating function

6. Random, based on a cryptographic hash of the clients IP address

The last algorithm ensures that a particular client will always connect to the same instance even if the Client Affinity feature is disabled. This algorithm is useful when you would like to ensure that multiple deployments of Proto Balance have parallel behavior with respect to clients. The license of this networking software is Free Trial Software, the price is $39.00, you can free download and get a free trial before you buy. If you want to get a full or nolimited version of Proto Balance, you can buy this networking software.