Load Balancing Differences Between 5.1 and 5.2

If you have a large volume of clients and want the user load shared between multiple servers, RFgen supports load balancing.

Note that the way load balancing works is different between 5.1 and 5.2.

In 5.1 RFgen opens two sockets per server for load balancing. Once these sockets were opened we transferred client information back and forth between all servers in a cluster.

Instead of sockets, RFgen 5.2 uses UDP packets and only request information when needed. This simplifies the logic for load balancing as well as reduces traffic on the network.

The other load balancing difference between 5.1 and 5.2 server involves domain name servers (DNS).

RFgen 5.1 can only resolve to one IP address even if multiple IPs are returned. So if you had 300 devices on one server, and added a second load balanced server, you would need to reconfigure each device (add the second server's hostname/IP address on the device) to enable connection with the second server.

RFgen 5.2 can resolve to multiple IP addresses. So if you had 300 devices on one server and added a second load balanced server, you would simply update DNS, and get your devices to connect to the new server. This saves the time and effort of having to update the devices individually.

Added a NAT Firewall checkbox to the Configuration -> Application Services screen. This enables the resolution from a server name to the IP address of other load balanced servers if they are behind a firewall.