Radware AppDirector Enhances MS UC Performance Via Load Balancing

Radware, a provider of application delivery solutions for business-smart networking, has announced that AppDirector, its intelligent Application Delivery Controller (ADC), has been qualified in the Hardware Load Balancer program for the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 environment; guaranteeing maximum availability, scalability, performance and security.

Managing traffic for both Web Services content and SIP-based Unified Communication (UC) services, AppDirector provides advanced health monitoring to avoid system downtime and advanced traffic management. Additionally, Radware’s ‘pay-as-you-grow’ licencing model ensures long-term investment protection.

By deploying Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 as a central component to a communications infrastructure, organisations gain business value through advanced collaboration and communications services. Yet for users to take full advantage of Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007 R2 solution, IT managers must be able to ensure its continuous availability and to efficiently scale-up the solution to support a greater number of concurrent users.

Radware’s AppDirector solves this challenge. Its advanced health-monitoring algorithms detect communications failure in real-time. Once any type of failure (Web server, application server, operating system or database) is detected, AppDirector automatically redirects users to an available resource.

AppDirector accelerates Microsoft’s UC performance and improves the Quality of Experience (QoE) through advanced load balancing. To optimise server performance, AppDirector redirects users to the least loaded, best performing server; thereby ensuring fast response time to all users at all times.

Yossi Vardi, vice president, Global Business Development, said, “In today’s continuous global business environment, the ‘always up’ requirement from a unified communication service, such as Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, has a strong business justification. AppDirector ensures that all different communications services are ready to serve the end-user; thereby reducing OPEX by eliminating downtime and improving productivity through uninterrupted communications services.”

AppDirector seamlessly integrates into existing and newly-deployed Office Communications Server 2007 R2 environments without the need for modifications to the network/ application infrastructure, or end-user client devices, software, or source code. Additionally, if an organisation plans to expand its Office Communications Server 2007 R2 server environment, AppDirector can be transparently added into the production environment without any network adaption or service interruption.