Brocade Load Balancer VS AWS Load Balancer

COMPARISON AMONG BROCADE LOAD BALANCER, AWS LOAD BALANCER AND RELIANOID LOAD BALANCER

What is Brocade Load Balancer

The Brocade Load Balancer, once part of Brocade’s Application Delivery Controller (ADC) suite, was engineered to enhance the efficiency and performance of application delivery across enterprise networks. It offered advanced Layer 4 through Layer 7 load balancing, intelligently distributing incoming traffic to maintain both application uptime and scalability. With features such as SSL offloading, content-based routing, and system health checks, it helped alleviate the burden on servers while ensuring reliable access to applications. Its compatibility with existing network setups made it a preferred choice for enterprises seeking to strengthen their application delivery infrastructure.

A key strength of the Brocade Load Balancer was its emphasis on high throughput and scalability for large-scale environments. It included advanced traffic control tools such as session persistence, data compression, and content caching to accelerate application performance and improve end-user experience. Additionally, integrated security functions like application-layer firewalling and intrusion prevention helped protect services from cyber threats. Although Brocade’s ADC solutions were eventually discontinued following the company’s acquisition, the Brocade Load Balancer’s design and capabilities continue to shape current trends in delivering secure, high-performance application services.

What is AWS Load Balancer

The AWS Load Balancer, widely known as Elastic Load Balancer (ELB), is a fully managed offering from Amazon Web Services (AWS) that distributes incoming application and network traffic across multiple destinations, such as EC2 instances, containers, or IP addresses. ELB supports both Layer 4 (Transport) and Layer 7 (Application) load balancing, depending on the type of service used: Application Load Balancer (ALB) handles HTTP/HTTPS traffic with sophisticated routing features; Network Load Balancer (NLB) is optimized for high-speed TCP and UDP traffic; and Gateway Load Balancer (GLB) allows the use of third-party virtual appliances for deep traffic inspection and security purposes. These load balancing types provide scalability, reliability, and consistent performance for applications running on the AWS platform.

A key advantage of AWS Load Balancer is its native integration with other AWS services, allowing infrastructure to automatically adapt to changing traffic volumes. It includes essential security options like SSL/TLS termination, support for AWS Certificate Manager, and compatibility with AWS WAF to guard against web-based threats. Continuous health monitoring ensures that traffic is only directed to functioning targets, maintaining high availability. Thanks to its usage-based pricing, ELB remains a flexible and economical choice for organizations deploying cloud-native or hybrid solutions.

WHAT IS RELIANOID

RELIANOID as alternative to Brocade Load Balancer and AWS Load Balancer across key ADC capabilities

Compared to the now-discontinued Brocade Load Balancer and the tightly integrated but platform-specific AWS Load Balancer, RELIANOID stands out with its vendor-neutral, high-performance architecture built on nftables and fully optimized for Linux environments. RELIANOID offers advanced Layer 3–7 load balancing, including features like mTLS, Multi-Factor Authentication, hot restarts, and DNS-based global distribution, which are either limited or unavailable in AWS’s offering. Unlike AWS, RELIANOID does not tie clients to a specific cloud ecosystem, enabling flexible deployment across on-prem, hybrid, or multi-cloud infrastructures. With full API support and low resource consumption, RELIANOID empowers organizations with maximum control, performance, and scalability.