Experience with Open Source load balancers?

[paul at paulgraydon.co.uk (Paul Graydon)]

On 05/17/2011 08:23 AM, Tom Hill wrote:
>> I've worked with open source and commercial solutions, and while the
>> open source systems were almost always far more flexible, and cheaper
>> up front, they certainly required more work to get going..  Once setup
>> and running though both types of solutions had pretty equal amounts of
>> maintenance, with the commercial solutions requiring somewhat less
>> time/babysitting for upgrades and to enable or use new features or
>> functionality.
> I worry far more about upgrades to proprietary appliances (where it's
> often the whole system image), than I do about a few package updates on
> a Linux machine (followed by a service restart, or two).
>
> But still, pretty well worded. :)
>
> Tom

Can't speak for other brands these days but F5s have two hard disks in 
them.  You can upgrade the software on the hot-spare, boot off that and 
confirm everything is working.  If it isn't you can just switch back.

Paul