Purpose

This document has been prepared for IS administrators and other IT professionals evaluating load balancing solutions from different vendors. Coyote Point Systems Inc. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the Equalizer E350si, a Layer 4-7 load-balancing appliance designed to provide Enterprise-class performance aimed at small to medium-sized businesses (and budgets).

Coyote Point also asked The Tolly Group to evaluate the Equalizer E350si against Barracuda Networks Load Balancer 340. The Barracuda Load Balancer 340 was chosen because the specifications show it offers similar capabilities to the Equalizer E350si.

Tolly Group engineers measured the transaction rate, response time and aggregate throughput at Layer 4 and Layer 7 when handling 64-byte and 16K byte object sizes.

Engineers also verified the features from various categories such as scalability, flexibility and ease of management. Tests were conducted in July 2008.

Executive Summary

In Layer 4 and Layer 7 tests with small and relatively large server responses, Coyote Point Systems Equalizer E350si significantly outperformed a Barracuda Networks Load Balancer 340 in throughput, transaction rate, maximum connections and response time. The Equalizer E350si's rich feature set helps meet the special needs of individual Web applications and servers while the Barracuda Load Balancer 340 provided limited management features. This hands-on evaluation of two load balancers demonstrates that there is more to product selection than just price alone.

Download the full Report: Equalizer E350si Competitive Performance and Feature Evaluation versus Barracuda Networks Load Balancer 340