Radware Alteon Reviews

We use Alteon for application load balancing, channel balancing, and high availability of applications through LDT in the cloud.

Radware has helped us to solve problems by providing optimal capacity.

It has also helped with the issue of migration to IPV6, thanks to its features and the way it is integrated into the network.

The most valuable feature of the solution is its stability. During the time that I have been using it, it has not undergone a service failure. In a large infrastructure like ours, there are always failures. But in our case, those failures are usually related to third parties and never due to Alteon Radware.

And with the integrated application protection, we have not suffered from attacks anymore.

Radware's visualization tool, Vision, also provides a lot of information in case of failures. It has helped us to understand very complex problems in one or two hours. It is very agile.

At the security level, it also contributes a lot. It has many security features and is very elastic and adaptable. If, for example, you have in-house security implemented, or you want to migrate it to the public or private cloud, it's very easy to change the licensing and integrate it.

I would like the solution to display and help visualize the reference map more easily. I would also like to better understand where queries come from and know which users are consulting the application, along with which app.

I would also like the next version of Alteon to include better traffic monitoring within the Vision feature.

I have been using Radware Alteon for about eight years.

So far, we have not had any network outages. The stability is quite good.

It is possible that we will increase the use of Radware in our company. It depends on what our clients require. Right now, we are implementing new channels so there is a high possibility that we will increase our use of the solution.

One of the benefits of using Radware is the support. If we have any doubt or a failure that we need to consult about with specialized support, the attention is immediate. They also answer in Spanish, which is the language we operate in. Sometimes, when support is in English, it is difficult for us to understand answers. Spanish language support obviously facilitates the resolution of problems. 

Overall, their support is very good and very agile. It is very specialized and efficient. They have helped us resolve issues very quickly.

Positive

Our deployment model is private cloud and we have Alteon set up in different locations. The initial deployment was simple. The migration was done without affecting our services and the implementation took about 15 days.

As we already had hardware services, we migrated the services to the backup, the main service was installed and, when it was established, the services were migrated and, thus, the backup was also migrated.

The monitoring team simply informs us of the health status of the equipment. If a change is reported in the firmware version, a change that affects us, we do an update. Otherwise, there is not much maintenance. Right now, we only have three people who work with Alteon.

We used Radware Professional Services. The deployment involved the Radware engineer and one person from our company's technical team.

We received training from Radware on how to use Alteon, but our team has been using Radware for eight years and we had previous experience. If someone is considering switching to Alteon but is concerned about the learning curve, Radware has a free training portal where it explains things very well. That could decrease the learning curve very quickly.

We see ROI in the reliability and in the support to which we can turn in case of failures.

Not only have we seen time to value from the solution, but I have seen information about events on Radware's social networks where they show how they protect environments in real-time attack situations. They talk about cyber attacks that hackers attempted in Ukraine. Radware is very immersed in that situation and that shows they are at a very high level. Ever since we implemented this protection solution, we have not seen the anomalies that occurred before.

From the moment we started to work with Radware, we understood that it is a high-level platform.

Right now we use a private cloud in data centers. An internet provider maintains our protection with an antivirus shield. We are evaluating the possibility of using Radware to protect public cloud services, such as AWS and Azure.

My advice is that it is necessary to add Radware's Vision solution for greater visibility into what is happening in the system. Also, increase the traffic lock, which is a feature that brings good visibility into all the traffic on the network.

With Radware, I have learned the importance of knowing the characteristics of your product very well and using them in the best possible way.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

¿Cuál es nuestro caso de uso principal?

Usamos Alteon para balanceo de carga de aplicaciones, balanceo de canales y alta disponibilidad de aplicaciones a través de LDT en la nube.

¿Cómo ha ayudado a mi organización?

Radware nos ha ayudado a resolver problemas proporcionando una capacidad óptima.

También ha ayudado con el tema de la migración a IPV6, gracias a sus características y la forma en que está integrado en la red.

¿Qué es lo más valioso?

La característica más valiosa de la solución es su estabilidad. Durante el tiempo que llevo usándolo no ha sufrido ningún fallo de servicio. En una gran infraestructura como la nuestra, siempre hay fallas. Pero en nuestro caso, esos fallos suelen estar relacionados con terceros y nunca debido a Alteon Radware.

Y con la protección de aplicaciones integrada, ya no hemos sufrido ataques.

La herramienta de visualización de Radware, Vision, también brinda mucha información en caso de fallas. Nos ha ayudado a entender problemas muy complejos en una o dos horas. Es muy ágil.

A nivel de seguridad también aporta mucho. Tiene muchos elementos de seguridad y es muy elástico y adaptable. Si, por ejemplo, tiene implementada la seguridad interna o desea migrarla a la nube pública o privada, es muy fácil cambiar la licencia e integrarla.

¿Qué necesita mejorar?

Me gustaría que la solución mostrara y ayudara a visualizar el mapa de referencia más fácilmente. También me gustaría comprender mejor de dónde provienen las consultas y saber qué usuarios están consultando la aplicación, junto con qué aplicación.

También me gustaría que la próxima versión de Alteon incluyera un mejor control del tráfico dentro de la función Vision.

¿Por cuánto tiempo he usado la solución?

He estado usando Radware Alteon durante unos ocho años.

¿Qué pienso sobre la estabilidad de la solución?

Hasta el momento, no hemos tenido ningún corte de red. La estabilidad es bastante buena.

¿Qué opino de la escalabilidad de la solución?

Es posible que aumentemos el uso de Radware en nuestra empresa. Depende de lo que requieran nuestros clientes. En este momento, estamos implementando nuevos canales, por lo que existe una gran posibilidad de que aumentemos el uso de la solución.

¿Cómo son el servicio de atención al cliente y el soporte?

Uno de los beneficios de usar Radware es el soporte. Si tenemos alguna duda o falla que necesitemos consultar con soporte especializado, la atención es inmediata. También responden en español, que es el idioma en el que operamos. A veces, cuando el soporte es en inglés, nos cuesta entender las respuestas. El soporte en español obviamente facilita la resolución de problemas.

En general, su soporte es muy bueno y muy ágil. Es muy especializado y eficiente. Nos han ayudado a resolver problemas muy rápidamente.

¿Cómo calificaría el servicio y soporte al cliente?

Positivo

¿Cómo fue la configuración inicial?

Nuestro modelo de implementación es una nube privada y tenemos instalado Alteon en diferentes ubicaciones. El despliegue inicial fue simple. La migración se realizó sin afectar nuestros servicios y la implementación tomó alrededor de 15 días.

Como ya teníamos servicios de hardware, migramos los servicios a la copia de seguridad, se instaló el servicio principal y cuando se estableció, se migraron los servicios y por lo tanto, también se migró la copia de seguridad.

El equipo de monitorización simplemente nos informa del estado de salud del equipo. Si se reporta un cambio en la versión del firmware, un cambio que nos afecta, hacemos una actualización. De lo contrario, no hay mucho mantenimiento. En este momento, solo tenemos tres personas que trabajan con Alteon.

¿Y el equipo de implementación?

Utilizamos los servicios profesionales de Radware. El despliegue involucró al ingeniero de Radware y a una persona del equipo técnico de nuestra empresa.

Recibimos capacitación de Radware sobre cómo usar Alteon, pero nuestro equipo ha estado usando Radware durante ocho años y teníamos experiencia previa. Si alguien está considerando cambiarse a Alteon pero está preocupado por la curva de aprendizaje, Radware tiene un portal de capacitación gratuito donde explica las cosas muy bien. Eso podría disminuir la curva de aprendizaje muy rápidamente.

¿Cuál fue nuestro Retorno de la Inversión?

Vemos el retorno de inversión en la confiabilidad y en el soporte al que podemos recurrir en caso de fallas.

No solo hemos visto el tiempo de valor de la solución, sino que hemos visto información sobre eventos en las redes sociales de Radware donde muestran cómo protegen otros entornos en situaciones de ataque en tiempo real. Hablan de los ciberataques que intentaron los piratas informáticos en Ucrania. Radware está muy inmerso en esa situación y eso demuestra que están a un nivel muy alto. Desde que implementamos esta solución de protección, no hemos visto las anomalías que ocurrían antes.

Desde el momento en que empezamos a trabajar con Radware, entendimos que es una plataforma de alto nivel.

¿Qué otro consejo tengo?

En este momento usamos una nube privada en los centros de datos. Un proveedor de internet mantiene nuestra protección con un escudo antivirus. Estamos evaluando la posibilidad de utilizar Radware para proteger los servicios de nube pública, como AWS y Azure.

Mi consejo es que es necesario agregar la solución Vision de Radware para una mayor visibilidad de lo que sucede en el sistema. Además, aumenten el bloqueo de tráfico, que es una característica que brinda una buena visibilidad de todo el tráfico en la red.

Con Radware he aprendido la importancia de conocer muy bien las características de tu producto y utilizarlas de la mejor manera posible.

We use Alteon to load balance our client traffic between different servers. We provide client support for deploying, configuring and troubleshooting. 

The best thing about Radware is the command line interface which is simple and very user-friendly. This is a very good device because it's easy to configure and easy to troubleshoot. Radware provides numerous guides including configuration, CLI, and troubleshooting. That is a very useful thing to troubleshoot, to configure our Radware devices. 

We've developed a lack of trust in the product because it sometimes behaves unexpectedly. Some issues are not resolved even after troubleshooting multiple times and then we have to reboot the device before it can be resolved. The solution could be more robust. The GUI should be improved because it's old and very traditional. One of our concerns is that Radware is not going to provide us with a free trial demo license so that we can install the product in our VM for our engineers to check, troubleshoot and study the product. 

I've been using this solution for over three years. 

Stability could be improved. 

Radware is a very scalable product. 

I haven't needed to contact technical support on my most recent project because I have a multiple-user configuration guide for the command line, the GUI base, and for any issues. The guides are very helpful. 

The initial setup and configuration process is very quick and easy. If we have a pre-configured setup file, then we can configure Radware within 5 to 10 minutes.

Radware is a very budget-friendly device. It is not too expensive.

This is a good product and we're generally satisfied with its features and capabilities. I rate the solution nine out of 10. 

We are a data center company, and we need load balancers at our end so that the load is balanced. These are network load balancers, and they are helping us to balance the overall traffic at our end. Because we are a data center company, we host a lot of customers. We host more than 800 customers in our data center, and that itself is a big use case. Earlier, we were using it only in one data center, but now, we are using it in two data centers, so we have two load balancers, one at each site, and we are about to configure global load balancing between both of them.

We are a data center company, and we used to see a lot of traffic management issues. Since the implementation of Alteon two and a half years ago, we have been able to load balance the entire traffic that is coming in. It gives our customers good performance. Customers are happy with the traffic management and the load balancing feature. The customers are more satisfied now than before it was implemented.

The integrated applicant protection is extremely good. Integration with third-party applications is easy in the case of Radware Alteon. This is a critical feature, and Radware has made it very simple.

We have also used the out-of-the-box integration feature, and we have also customized some integration with the help of our Radware partner. We have integrated with vRA/vRO. Ansible is going to be used along with my OpenStack in the new load balancer that we have attached.

The automation script libraries for each orchestrator are good. That is the reason the integration is simplified. If these automation scripts were complicated, integration would have been difficult, but because of these automation scripts, integration has become so easy, robust, and simple, and we are able to integrate third-party applications within a very short period of time.

The best part is that we are able to manage it easily. It is easy to manage and easy to integrate with third-party applications. It is also easy in terms of overall support. The installation itself was very easy. These are the most likable features about Radware load balancers.

Their support can be better. The Radware management is very proactive. We can connect to anybody in Radware Management in India. We can even connect with the MD of Radware India. However, their lower level staff should be more proactive towards the customers.

In terms of features, we have had issues with SSL in version 5208, and we asked them to improve it on the SSL front. They have improved the new one. Currently, we are using 6024. In this version, SSL integration and the integration layer are a lot more simplified and secure. This was missing in the earlier version, but in the new version, it is simplified and resolved. In the earlier version, firmware upgrades also used to take slightly more time, whereas, in the new version, there are no issues at all.

We have been using Radware Alteon for almost two and a half years.

It is stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten in terms of stability.

It is scalable. I would rate it a nine out of ten in terms of scalability.

I would rate their support an eight out of ten. It can be better.

Positive

We did not use anything before Alteon. We were without a load balancer when we started the operation. It was becoming very difficult to manage or load balance the traffic. Since we implemented it, life has become simple for us.

It is a hybrid model. In the first implementation, we did not face many issues. There were some traffic issues related to utilization, but they got resolved. We are now implementing the second one, and we are also going to implement global load balancing. Overall, things are much simpler now. They have improved its simplicity.

Its maintenance includes only firmware upgrades and nothing else. We do not see any maintenance issues.

We have a Radware partner. This partner is called RAH Infotech. They do the implementation along with our team. There were two people from the partner side and four of our team members. There were six people.

We did not receive training from Radware on how to use Alteon. It is also not required. It is very simple. We did not need any training. When our partner implemented it, we learned it along with that.

The return on investment is directly proportional to the improved satisfaction of the customer. Earlier, the customers were not satisfied, whereas now, customers are extremely satisfied because their traffic is balanced. They know that they are getting the best performance. The throughput is the best. When the customers are satisfied, the ROI of the system is already achieved.

We could see its value in two months from the date of purchase. It took almost three weeks to implement. After that, in two to three weeks, we started observing. We started seeing the value from eight weeks onwards.

It is the best in the industry. It was better than the competition, and that is what made us go ahead with them. In any product, we look for features and functionalities, product support, management connection, and pricing.

We looked at F5, Citrix, and Array solutions. We went for Alteon for four reasons. I have 30 years of experience, and at least for the last 15 years, a load balancer meant only Radware. We never heard about other products, so we were aware of Radware load balancers. This was the first reason. 

The second reason was the management connection. If you have a management connection at the topmost level, things become much easier, so the product is good, and the management connection is there. We have signed for the highest level of support from them.

Another important factor was the market buzzword. People believe that in the CISO platform category, Radware is among the best products in the market today.

The cost was another factor. We were able to get the best rate from them as compared to other competitors.

It is the best in the market. It is simple. It is not complex, and pricing is also very competitive, so you can go ahead with it.

Overall, I would rate Radware Alteon an eight out of ten. There is always room for improvement.

The solution is basically used for load balancing. We do build for load balancing as well. We have several load balancers in the physical and cloud space. We started using it for GTM and also use it for some iRules scripting and to modify the SDP draft.

It was way cheaper than F5, so that was the reason to move from F5 to Radware. In terms of value for money, maybe it's better. F5 is very good. However, it was really expensive. This solution is also quite good, yet costs much less.

It's quite a nice solution. It's like F5. They are very good products and are very easy to use. They're very powerful, you can do a lot of things with the scripting, and also even in the interface and the graphic interface, you can configure other things without going to the scripting, to the rules.

The initial setup is easy and it was quick to deploy.

The solution has been very stable.

Maybe there are a couple of things that didn't work very well. You kind of have the same build and different build for load balancers. It can create some issues. We faced issues where we needed to have some kind of the same balance in different environments. That happened with F5. However, in Radware, you can do it when we move to production and we need to change the balance there. Different environments should be able to have some balance to be completely isolated. That's something that they could really improve to make it really, really isolated.

We’d like the solution to include more security features in the standard license.

We just acquired Radware in the last few months. IT’s been about eight months.

The solution is stable. In the last eight months since we migrated, we’ve had no big issues. Everything is working fine. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn’t crash or freeze.

The scalability is about licensing. You require more bandwidth and more throughput. To scale, it’s about acquiring more licensing. That’s about it.

For example, if you have a license of 30GBs of traffic and may need to support up to maybe 80GBs. You need to increase the license. You can kind of use it on demand, however. If you can change the license every three years, and you can see that your throughput is going to increase a lot, you can scale up.

We have about ten people on the solution currently. We do have plans to potentially increase usage in the future.

Technical support was okay. We opened a couple of tickets, it was okay. They were fast and they fixed the issues.

Positive

We just migrated to Radware from F5 APM. It’s quite new. It's really, really powerful. However, they are very good load balancers.

The setup is relatively straightforward. To do clustering is very easy. It's way easier than F5, I would say.

The deployment was quite fast. The problem was that migrating from F5 took a lot because we had to add the Windows in place and handle the service impact. That said, deploying is fast. If you are in the integration field and you don't have to migrate, it's pretty fast.

How many people you need to maintain the solution depends on the size. However, you might need four or five people.

There was a mix of personnel helping with the setup. I was doing it mostly myself. However, I had the help of professional services from Radware.

For the amount of traffic that we use, it's as good as F5 and way cheaper.

The pricing is much more reasonable than, for example, F5, our old solution.

I’m not sure how much the solution costs. However, my understanding is that it is moderately priced. I’d rate it a three out of five in terms of affordability. It’s not cheaper. However, it is less expensive than F5.

We checked in with Citrix as well. It was also good. In the end, we went to Radware.

We’re just a customer.

We’re using one of the most recent versions of the solution.

It's a very good product, however, if it would work for your company would depend on your needs. It depends on the amount of traffic.

I’d rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use it as a source for the delivery of services and we have many applications. It is the core of our business in terms of supporting those applications.

It has improved our organization in terms of the availability of our critical systems by increasing the level of protection for those systems. We are a critical-infrastructure company, and the services have many internal clients that have experienced that improvement.

Our Alteon system is configured in high availability and it helps us have a very productive system. We have it on one device that is in contingency for when we want to apply changes. For example, we can do new parameterization that can be applied to the device that has Alteon in backup, do tests there, and almost automatically synchronize the changes with our main Alteon. In other words, we have a very versatile and high-availability solution.

In addition, the health status information, with its highly detailed reporting, has saved us time on troubleshooting. We have the precise information needed that helps us find different types of situations. It has saved us about 50 percent of our time when troubleshooting.

At the corporate level, it is a very effective tool and it’s very simple. It shows us reports on the state of health of the services that we have configured, in terms of load balancing.

It really seems to us that Alteon meets expectations. It is not a solution that needs a high level of expertise. Although certain functions can become complex, only a minimum level of knowledge is needed.

Recently, our team was talking about the things you can customize in Alteon and the level of programming that doing so demands. I would like to see more information on how to customize the programming and troubleshoot.

I am new to the company and have been using Radware Alteon for six months, but the tool has been in use for about five years.

It is completely stable.

In our company, it is implemented in multiple services, multiple applications, and multiple physical sites.  Alteon functions in high-availability mode, in separate data centers.

We always have plans to expand our use of it for new applications and services.

In the time I have been with this company we have had to open one customer service ticket. It was handled well and immediately. They serve you quickly.

Positive

I wasn't involved in the initial deployment, but I received virtual training from someone at Radware when I started working with this company. A month later, I did the basic Alteon certification. It took me about two months to understand the magnitude of the benefits we have from using the Alteon load balancers.

My colleagues who were here before Alteon told me that it took them five or six months before they received any formal training, and when they received the training, they became more familiar with and had a deeper understanding of the Alteon operating model.

If you are thinking of switching to Alteon but worry about the learning curve, Alteon's management is very simple and intuitive after you acquire a certain level of basic knowledge. The most complex part is the configuration, but that is usually done by the supplier, so I don't think that that would be part of the learning curve. Overall, the platform is easy to learn when it comes to managing it.

The solution doesn't require almost any maintenance on our side. It is not constantly in preventive maintenance, so it has reduced our maintenance overhead. There might be some version update scheduling, but there is not much to do.

I am not in the financial area where I can talk about the return on investment in numerical terms, but from a technological point of view, we believe that the investment made in Alteon can be justified. I believe that investment was recovered in the first year. Its service is so satisfactory that the new budgets are being pre-approved for Alteon's renewal. The fact that we continue to use it also says something about the benefits from our investment.

The price conforms to what the tool provides. It is not an inexpensive tool and not all companies can afford an ADC solution such as Alteon. However, it justifies its price with the options it offers. And there are no additional costs other than the standard rates, renewal, and maintenance.

Although I wasn't working for this company at the time, they told me that they evaluated F5. From what I understand, the differences were in the functionality and accessibility of Alteon’s assets. I don't know about the cost comparison and value, but after doing the proofs of concept, our company was happier with the functionality of Alteon.

If you are evaluating Alteon, it is because you are thinking about having an ADC for service delivery. It's a tool that is essential for increasing the availability and performance of critical systems and the delivery of critical tools. Alteon definitely balances performance between applications.

The greatest lesson I have learned from using it has been discovering that it is essential for the availability and performance that applications require. It is not only simply about looking at the disks; you also need to deliver load balancing and increase availability, and that is what tools such as Alteon deliver.

Alteon has met the expectations we had for it. In fact, we are already thinking of an update, a renewal for next year. It is a solution of critical importance for us. It is effective and complies with what we need when it comes to the protection and balancing of the systems.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

¿Cuál es nuestro caso de uso principal?

Lo usamos como fuente para prestar servicios y tenemos muchas aplicaciones. Es el núcleo de nuestro negocio en términos de soporte para esas aplicaciones.

¿Cómo ha ayudado a mi organización?

Ha mejorado nuestra organización en términos de disponibilidad de nuestros sistemas críticos al aumentar el nivel de protección para esos sistemas. Somos una empresa de infraestructura crítica y los servicios tienen muchos clientes internos que han experimentado esa mejora.

Nuestro sistema Alteon está configurado en alta disponibilidad y nos ayuda a tener un sistema muy productivo. Lo tenemos en un dispositivo que está en contingencia para cuando queramos aplicar cambios. Por ejemplo, podemos hacer una nueva parametrización que se puede aplicar al dispositivo que tiene Alteon en la copia de seguridad, hacer pruebas allí y sincronizar los cambios casi automáticamente con nuestro Alteon principal. En otras palabras, tenemos una solución muy versátil y de alta disponibilidad.

Además, la información del estado de salud, con sus informes muy detallados, nos ha ahorrado tiempo en la resolución de problemas. Tenemos la información precisa necesaria que nos ayuda a encontrar diferentes tipos de situaciones. Nos ha ahorrado alrededor del 50 por ciento de nuestro tiempo en la resolución de problemas.

¿Qué es lo más valioso?

A nivel corporativo es una herramienta muy efectiva y muy sencilla. Nos muestra informes sobre el estado de salud de los servicios que tengamos configurados, en cuanto a balanceo de carga.

¿Qué necesita mejorar?

Realmente nos parece que Alteon cumple con las expectativas. No es una solución que requiera un alto nivel de experiencia. Aunque ciertas funciones pueden volverse complejas, solo se necesita un nivel mínimo de conocimiento.

Recientemente, nuestro equipo habló sobre las cosas que puede personalizar en Alteon y el nivel de programación que exige hacerlo. Me gustaría ver más información sobre cómo personalizar la programación y solucionar problemas.

¿Por cuánto tiempo he usado la solución?

Soy nuevo en la empresa y he estado usando Radware Alteon durante seis meses, pero la herramienta ha estado en uso durante unos cinco años.

¿Qué pienso sobre la estabilidad de la solución?

Es completamente estable.

¿Qué opino de la escalabilidad de la solución?

En nuestra empresa está implementado en múltiples servicios, múltiples aplicaciones y múltiples sitios físicos. Alteon funciona en modo de alta disponibilidad, en data centers separados.

Siempre tenemos planes para expandir nuestro uso de él para nuevas aplicaciones y servicios.

¿Cómo son el servicio de atención al cliente y el soporte?

En el tiempo que llevo con esta empresa hemos tenido que abrir un ticket de atención al cliente. Se manejó bien y de inmediato. Te atienden rápido.

¿Cómo calificaría el servicio y soporte al cliente?

Positivo

¿Cómo fue la configuración inicial?

No participé en la implementación inicial, pero recibí capacitación virtual de alguien en Radware cuando comencé a trabajar con esta empresa. Un mes después, hice la certificación básica de Alteon. Me tomó cerca de dos meses comprender la magnitud de los beneficios que obtenemos al usar los balanceadores de carga de Alteon.

Mis colegas que estuvieron aquí antes de Alteon me dijeron que les tomó cinco o seis meses antes de recibir una capacitación formal, y cuando recibieron la capacitación, se familiarizaron más y tuvieron una comprensión más profunda del modelo operativo de Alteon.

Si estás pensando en cambiarte a Alteon pero te preocupa la curva de aprendizaje, la gestión de Alteon es muy sencilla e intuitiva una vez que adquieres un cierto nivel de conocimientos básicos. La parte más compleja es la configuración, pero eso generalmente lo hace el proveedor, por lo que no creo que sea parte de la curva de aprendizaje. En general, la plataforma es fácil de aprender y es muy fácil de administrar.

La solución no requiere casi ningún mantenimiento de nuestra parte. No está constantemente en mantenimiento preventivo, por lo que ha reducido nuestros gastos generales de mantenimiento. Puede haber alguna programación de actualización de versión, pero no hay mucho que hacer.

¿Cuál fue nuestro retorno de inversión?

No estoy en el área financiera donde pueda hablar del retorno de la inversión en términos numéricos, pero desde un punto de vista tecnológico, creemos que la inversión realizada en Alteon puede estar justificada. Creo que esa inversión se recuperó en el primer año. Su servicio es tan satisfactorio que ya se están pre aprobando los nuevos presupuestos para la renovación de Alteon. El hecho de que sigamos usándolo también dice algo sobre los beneficios de nuestra inversión.

¿Cuál es mi experiencia con los precios, el costo de configuración y las licencias?

El precio se ajusta a lo que ofrece la herramienta. No es una herramienta económica y no todas las empresas pueden permitirse una solución ADC como Alteon. Sin embargo, justifica su precio con las opciones que ofrece. Y no hay costes adicionales aparte de las tarifas estándar, renovación y mantenimiento.

¿Qué otras soluciones evalué?

Aunque yo no estaba trabajando para esta empresa en ese momento, me dijeron que evaluaron F5. Por lo que entiendo, las diferencias estaban en la funcionalidad y accesibilidad de Alteon. No sé acerca de la comparación de costos y valor, pero después de hacer las pruebas de concepto, nuestra empresa estaba más satisfecha con la funcionalidad de Alteon.

¿Qué otro consejo tengo?

Si tu empresa está evaluando a Alteon, es porque está pensando en tener un ADC para la prestación de servicios. Es una herramienta esencial para aumentar la disponibilidad y el rendimiento de los sistemas críticos y la entrega de herramientas críticas. Alteon definitivamente equilibra el rendimiento entre aplicaciones.

La mayor lección que he aprendido al usarlo ha sido descubrir que es esencial para la disponibilidad y el rendimiento que requieren las aplicaciones. No se trata simplemente de mirar los discos; también se necesita ofrecer equilibrio de carga y aumentar la disponibilidad, y eso es lo que ofrecen herramientas como Alteon.

Alteon ha cumplido con las expectativas que teníamos para él. De hecho, ya estamos pensando en una actualización, una renovación para el próximo año. Es una solución de importancia crítica para nosotros. Es eficaz y cumple con lo que necesitamos en cuanto a la protección y el equilibrio de los sistemas.

We use it as a load balancer.

It gives our application more resiliency by providing redundancy so that if one server fails, another one can take over and service the website.

And when troubleshooting, Alteon’s analytics have helped me save about half the time it would take me otherwise.

I like the web GUI. It's very intuitive and easy to use.

The reverse proxy piece is a little bit complicated. If the reverse proxy were easier to implement, that would help.

I have been using Radware Alteon for seven years.

It's very stable. It hasn't crashed on me at all.

It's scalable. We can purchase more licenses to accommodate more throughput.

We have it deployed across multiple locations and we have about 20,000 end-users.

Their tech support is very knowledgeable. I've always liked working with the Radware engineering team. They know their stuff.

Positive

We used AppDirectors, which is also from Radware. We switched because AppDirector was old and was end-of-support.

The deployment was pretty straightforward.

In terms of maintenance, every year we try to upgrade the code on the Alteon, but that's about it. It has reduced my maintenance overhead. It's a very low-maintenance system.

I did the whole deployment, along with my boss and one of my colleagues, and we used professional services from Radware. We received training, which was bundled with the purchase.

We have definitely seen return on our investment. It keeps our business more resilient and with higher availability.

The value in it also comes from the fact that how you manage it, and how you create and do things, is a lot easier. It's also more stable.

I needed a couple of months to get familiarized with it.

I'm content with Alteon's pricing.

The licensing is a little bit complicated because it's based on how much bandwidth you want to use, what the throughput is. Instead of having a throughput limit, it just allows whatever the bandwidth is and bases the licensing on vADCs (virtual application delivery controllers) only. That makes it a little bit complicated.

We did a PoC of F5. We chose Alteon based on cost and ease of use. F5 was twice the cost of Alteon at the time, although that was seven years ago.

Radware is not as well known as F5, so maybe the name is a little bit more obscure. That might be a little bit concerning for some people, but it wasn't for me.

You need to understand how to do low balancing and what it does. And you need to think about what types of features you are looking to get out of a product, such as SSL offloading.

I also use Radware's APSolute Vision, which enables me to manage all my devices—that's the best for me—as well as DefensePro.

We are using Radware Alteon in our data center as a link load balancer, service load balancer, and ADC.

In our data center, the biggest problem was handling the traffic. We have more than 9,000,000 consumers or electricity utility users. Handling the traffic was a little difficult, and the site was going down every one or two hours. We connected with multiple load-balancing companies such as RA Network, F5, Radware, etc. We found Radware Alteon to be the best because of three things. The first one was the product. The second one was the solution they provided, and the third one was the support team. The security features were also good, and we could use Pulse Secure for third-party SSL integration. The availability of the product was very quick. These were the main benefits of why we went for Radware Alteon 6420s.

Radware Alteon helped us to balance the links. Our data center is connected to almost 519 locations, and we have more than 9,000,000 users. Radware Alteon helped us to do the perfect load balancing so that the MPLS link and the ILL link that we are using in the data center get perfectly utilized, and there is no downtime. We have reduced the downtime for customers.

I like the ADC feature and the global certificate feature.

There are a few areas of improvement. It can be improved by combining the web application firewall (WAF) facility. 

The sandbox feature should be there. We have previously used an RA Network product for load balancing. They have a feature called Sandbox, but that feature is not there in Radware Alteon. This feature helps us to improve performance and security for application delivery.

Its GUI can be improved. Its GUI is a little old. 

We are based in India, but we get better support in other time zones. If Radware can establish a bigger support center in India so that we get support in Indian time, that would be helpful. In the international time zones, we get perfect support, but during the Indian time zone, we face a little bit of difficulty. There is a lot of waiting time. The turnaround time is also high during the Indian time zone, but during the international time zones, we get immediate support.

The scalability and reliability of the product are very good. Not much improvement is required there, but some security features can be improved.

We have been using Radware Alteon for the last four years.

Its stability is good, but it could be better.

There are add-on facilities for integrating with third-party SSL for security purposes. These facilities make this product scalable. Link load balancing, service load balancing, and the ADC part have scalability. If we do not have the physical nodes, we can get the virtual nodes, so this product is highly scalable.

I have taken the help of the experts and support multiple times. One instance was related to the upgrade to the Golden OS version, and one instance was related to the sanity check of the Radware configurations. I have also taken support for SAP link load balancing and implementation of third-party SSL. The support from them was great.

I would rate their support an eight out of ten. I have reduced two points because of the issue of support during Indian work hours. Their support during international times is very quick. Another issue is the email response time during Indian hours. It takes almost four hours. Radware is our hyperactive device, and in case it goes down, because of the delay in response, we might cross the SLA, but fortunately, it has never been down because we have the infrastructure in HA mode. We have one Radware, and there are active and passive nodes.

Positive

We were using F5 as a load balancer. We switched to Radware Alteon because it was very cost-effective. Another reason was its reliability and robustness. F5 was only doing the link load balancing, but with Radware Alteon, we got three features in the same product. We got ADC, link load balancing, and service link load balancing in a single package. The security feature for integrating a third-party SSL was also available. It helped us to implement all the demands of the customer for whom we implemented the data center.

In terms of the deployment model, it is a private data center, and the cloud provider is AWS.

Its deployment was straightforward. There was no complexity. We received multiple training sessions from the Radware team on configuration, taking backups, etc. We had also used the Alteon product previously for other engagements, so it was not a critical task. It was just a one-day or two-day learning process to get familiar with the environment. We already had the product knowledge.

We got an integrator called Robert Bosch. We had three people for deployment. You need only three people. One person is enough to do the mounting and hardware installation. You need one person who has good knowledge of application load balancing and how ADC works. You also need one person as a backup. These three people are enough to do the deployment of a single small site.

In terms of maintenance, it does not require much maintenance. It requires regular preventive maintenance such as OS upgradation or patch degradation, which we have done on our own. We have not faced any challenges compared to the other products that I have used in previous engagements, so in terms of maintenance, this device is good, and it has the ability to manage temperature and humidity. At the physical and configuration level, we have not found much difficulty in maintenance. The cooling system and the fan are perfectly placed. We have not had any hardware faults. It is a good product, and we are able to manage the product well.

Its pricing is very good. It is very competitive. Radware Alteon is the leader in the market. At a lesser price, we get a good product and also good support. Other vendors who provide load balancers charge separately for two items. You have the hardware cost, and you have the support cost, whereas, in the case of Radware, you get both in a single package.

We got a margin of up to 25% on the product. We got support almost free of cost. It was a very good deal with Radware. It was a win-win situation at both ends.

We did not evaluate other products. Radware Alteon was the first option given by the client. The client had specified Radware Alteon specifically because it had all three features. It was a bid requirement.

We found it valuable even before the purchase because of its specification or datasheet. When we compared the datasheet of Radware Alteon 6420s, it was a lot more attractive. It had more features than its competitors, so we realized its importance before the bid, but after using the device, we found it easier to implement as compared to other products.

I have already recommended it for multiple projects in our organization. I would advise selecting a proper model of Radware and also evaluating the specification. That is because if the specification is different and the model chosen is different, things would not work. That is the first point. The second point is that before purchasing the product, refer to the datasheet of the Alteaon product. I would also advise connecting with their presales team. During the purchase, we got connected with the Hyderabad office of Radware, and we got a lot of knowledge. 

In the PoC model, if we go for any Cisco product, we have the GNS3 tool or a web synthesizer. Similarly, if Radware can have a web synthesizer before buying the product that can be implemented in a virtual environment or in a testing environment, that will help us evaluate which product suits us the best. The second is the proper guidance from the SMEs. These two things will improve Radware sales and help with expansion.

We have used the out-of-the-box integration feature. We use OpenShift, but I have not worked with the automation script libraries for the orchestrator. With Radware Alteon, my role was to finalize the vendor and do the commissioning of the hardware. Most of the configuration part was done by another team from my company. My role was to select the product, get it connected to the Internet, and then do the setup of the network part. It was more of link load balancing.

I would rate Radware Alteon a nine out of ten.

We use Alteon Radware to balance web page services hosted on real and virtual servers, these government portals must be available 100% of the time and must be accessible from the internet and intranet. In addition to the fact that we can add an extra layer of security (due to the use of virtual IP address and proxy IP address) When there is an impact on any of the servers, we receive an alert notification and we can attend to the impact on that server, for the end-user, this is indistinct since the service is not affected.

We have improved the user experience by having services available all the time, in addition to the fact that with this solution it is easier to manage from a graphical interface that is useful and intuitive, as an administrator it is important to have a clear and complete vision of the services that we operate. Simple troubleshooting tools have helped us solve problems faster and problems are more complex so analysis is complex so we asked for Radware support. This has helped us to identify exactly where the problems are in the network, correct faults, and continuous improvement.

The simple and well-documented configuration allows us to be able to implement new balancing services at the request of the user with the same conditions and good service that they expect. We can also make changes to services that are already running, as I mentioned before, the graphical interface is very intuitive and you can almost always make the most common changes quickly.

Radware has been characterized by being extremely robust. This gives us the confidence to offer our users a continuous service.

We recently had a problem with the table's Obsolete ARP which was observed by the support team. It would be good to diagnose and solve this problem with a patch since it is not documented that it will be solved in later updates. The implementation of this service has been expanding to more of our clients, it is rare that we need to contact Radware support and even more rarely a call in real-time but we have found few technicians who give us support in Spanish, we could attend to the problems much faster if language barriers weren't an issue.

I used the solution two years ago.

The solution is extremely robust.

It is highly scalable.

99% of the time they have given us fast and efficient support.

Positive

Manual balancing tools and changes were made as a user might experience outages.

The initial setup was straightforward. It is well documented and we are free to do it via GUI or CLI.

We implemented this through an internal team, which is trained to do so thanks to the training tools provided by Radware.

We can offer automation in case of impact, which translates into time savings. I do not have the exact information of the ROI in terms of cash

The licensing processes are easy and the costs are acceptable. We use permanent licenses and we have not had any problems.

We did not evaluate other options. 

They could improve the solution update processes to make it easier and faster.