FEZhead - Open Source Global Load Balancer

[Eric Boyd]

We've just released an open source global load balancer--FEZhead--that works
nicely alongside named. The purpose of this tool is to enable the creation
of multi-sited web sites through mirroring, caching, or multi-homing. By
combining it with Apache, Squid, and/or BIND, you could set up a private
content delivery network (ala Akamai) using open source software.

The idea behind FEZhead is that you'd continue to use named to for all your
normal name service, but let FEZhead handle DNS requests to your multi-sited
website. In addition, FEZhead double checks its DNS-based selection once an
HTTP query is made, using HTTP redirects if the requesting name server is
not representative of the topological location of the browser.

FEZhead takes into account performance factors (latency, packet loss, cache
load), ensures full round-trip connectivity (not one-connectivity), and
factors in bandwidth usage (minimizing the additional hidden bandwidth costs
that can arise from multi-siting).

You can download the source code or the binaries from
http://www.fezhead.org/.

Comments and feedback would be much appreciated.

--Eric