Kemp Load Master 1500 Review
Posted by Sam
A while back I reviewed the Barracuda 340 load balancer. The review wasn't pretty, because frankly the experience was horrible. I was so disgusted that I shipped that box back pretty quickly and went with the other contender. The other contender was Kemp's Load Master 1500. Several people have written me to find out what my experience with the Kemp load balancer has been so I thought it was about time that I put my thoughts down on paper ... so to speak.
I've been using the Kemp in production for over three months. Because of the amount of sites that run behind the Load Master it's pretty difficult to tell exactly how much traffic passes through it. A quick look revealed that it easily handled over 2.1 million hits a day around Christmas last year. And it did this without breaking a sweat so I'm confident that it can handle much more than that. I have yet to experience any of the sort of strange issues that I experienced with the Barracuda and overall I have much higher degree of confidence in the Kemp solution.
The interface definitely doesn't do this machine justice. It could stand to be completely revamped and for some strange reason you can't always put a name on your virtual servers. Well you can name it, but the name doesn't stick. This is more of an annoyance than a real problem and just goes to show that their web interface could use some love. They have a very solid product, but I'd definitely love to see some more flexibility. Like being to add multiple users or allowing the admin user to be named something besides 'bal', which took me forever to get used to. How about something more normal like admin or root or something.
The only real complaint I have about the Load Master is Kemp using a license key. It's a physical box that I'm buying and having to enter in a license key for a physical piece of hardware never sits well with me. And to top it off their documentation isn't at all clear that the box requires a permanent license key or it will shutdown. I failed to install the permanent license key because I thought it was for the SSL acceleration and one day I wake up to phone calls saying all the sites are down. If you are going to enforce a license key (which I think is stupid on a physical product but whatever) then you need to have it fail better. I actually had the license key but the Load Master reverted back to it's pre-configured state and was completely unavailable remotely. This forced me to drive to the data center, through piles of snow, to figure out why the load balancer died. A much more sensible way of handling this would be to not allow you to make any changes next time you log into the admin tool. Or you could just make the documentation clear and explain exactly how important that permanent key is.
The Kemp Load Master 1500 is a very solid performer and other than the extremely irritating way they handle licensing I've been quite happy with it to date. At just under $2,500 is cheaper than the Barracuda with a more responsive interface and much more reliable track record. The Kemp wins hands down and is a great deal for the price. I was really looking forward to the IPS system in the Barracuda, but first and foremost the load balancing functions need to work.
Tags: loadbalancer
Comments
3 days later Joseph Spenner said
Sam: Thanks for the update! I emailed Kemp today, and received a sales guy call minutes later. I drilled him about a few things, which led him to defer until he could get a tech guy on the phone. I'm going to see if I can get a unit to test. I'll post more when I have something to report.
3 months later Rob K said
I'm in the same situation currently and these 2 reviews are exactly what I need. Cheers
4 months later James said
Hi Sam, good review. I think Kemps products are great value for money but I recently came across a very interesting product comparison site that has a specific comparison between the LM1500 and Loadbalancer.orgs Enterprise R16. Check it out at www.loadbalancer.biz it appears the R16 significantly out-performs the Kemp!
about 1 year later Marcel Prisi said
Have you tried Coyote Point load balancers ? the entry level 250si is quite capable and very cheap, known to work really well ...
about 1 year later Sam Freiberg said
@Marcel - I have tried the Coyote Point load balancers. They were kind enough to send me a unit to try. Unfortunately, I got to spend very little time with it because I was getting married and work was extremely hectic. Coyote Point was kind enough to let me keep the unit for a really long time. I really liked what I saw with the CP load balancer though and I'd definitely recommend it over the Kemp. We've been using the Kemp load balancer at work for over a year but I can't in good conscience recommend them anymore. When we first started using the 1500 we were pushing about 3.5Mb/sec and things were fine. Once our traffic increased (currently at 18-20Mb/sec and using level 7 features) the Kemp just can't keep up. It routinely spikes the CPU to 100% and when that happens all the traffic hangs until the CPU levels off. We are currently investigating alternatives and are looking at a load balancer from A10 networks. It's more of a mid range load balancer so the cost is definitely higher.