Pulse Virtual Traffic Manager: Feature Summary

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We have made it easier to see which features are offered in which model of Pulse Virtual Traffic Manager: there are two feature groups, which are common to both fixed-sized licenses using the Pulse vTM, and in the capacity-based licensing scheme using the Pulse Services Director:
 

Advanced Edition: Includes the most common LB capabilities, including SSL/TLS offload, session persistence, service level monitoring, simple TrafficScript Rule Builder, and support for IPv6 and HTTP/2; and also includes capabilities such as Global Load Balancing, Route Health Injection, and customisation using the powerful TrafficScript scripting language and Java Extensions;

 

Enterprise Edition: Includes premium L7 services such as Web Content Optimization (WCO) and Web Application Firewall (WAF) and FIPS compliance.
 

Model	Pulse vTM Bandwidth Options
Throughput	50M	400M	1G	3G	5G	10G	20G	40G	80G
SSL/TLS TPS	Uncapped
Functionality	Choose from Advanced or Enterprise Editions
Deployment model	Choose from Software, Virtual Appliance or Bare Metal image
License Style	Choose from Perpetual or Subscription

Functionality	Advanced Edition	Enterprise Edition		Community Edition 10 Mbps limit  4 cluster nodes
Pulse vTM	Y	Y		Y
Pulse Services Director	Y	Y		-
Load Balancing	Y	Y		Y
HTTP/2 Support	Y	Y		Y
Content Routing	Y	Y		Y
Health Monitoring	Y	Y		Y
Simple TrafficScript Rule Builder	Y	Y		Y
SSL/TLS Offload	Y	Y		Y
HTTP Compression	Y	Y		Y
Event and Action System	Y	Y		Y
Service Protection	Y	Y		Y
Activity Graphs	Y	Y		Y
HTTP Caching	Y	Y		Y
Autoscale	Y	Y		Y
XML Parsing	Y	Y		Y
Bandwidth Management	Y	Y		Y
Rate Shaping	Y	Y		Y
Service Level Monitoring	Y	Y		Y
TrafficScript	Y	Y		Y
Java Extensions	Y	Y		Y
Multi Site Manager	Y	Y		Y
Global Load Balancing	Y	Y		Y
Route Health Injection	Y	Y		Y
Web Accelerator Express	-	Y		Y
Web Accelerator	-	Y		Y
Web Application Firewall	-	Y		Y
Enterprise Authentication	-	Y		Y
FIPS	-	Y		Y

Feature Summary 

Feature	Description	Adv	Ent
Load Balancing	Traffic Manager can use a wide variety of algorithms and techniques and balance load based on different criteria (e.g. can send more requests to higher spec machines). Servers can be drained for easy maintenance and uninterrupted service. The client never has to see a server fail.	Y	Y
HTTP/2 Support	Faster web pages with support for HTTP/2 connections. HTTP/2 is a significant enhancement to the HTTP/1.1 standard: Traffic Manager can automatically negotiate an HTTP/2 connection with the client web browser, which may improve web page load time with techniques such as connection sharing, page request multiplexing and header compression. For even more advanced HTML and web content optimization, the optional Web Accelerator technology is available in the Enterprise Edition, to create custom optimization profiles for individual applications.	Y	Y
Content Routing	Use Traffic Manager to apply business policies to each request for custom routing decisions, applying HTTP pool selection routing based on L7 attributes such as URL and hostname. Content inspection allows rapid web changes such as the insertion of marketing tags, branding changes, and dynamic watermarking, procedures that may be difficult to achieve by modifying the application itself.	Y	Y
Session Persistence	Ensures all requests from a client go to the same server, enabling application data to persist throughout a session without using cookies (e.g. an e-commerce shopping basket).	Y	Y
Health Monitoring	Monitor the health and correct operation of servers with built-In and custom checks. Detect failures of servers and errors in applications, and route traffic away from these servers so that the performance of the application is not compromised and the user experience is maintained.	Y	Y
Simple TrafficScript RuleBuilder	Define rules to control applications with the TrafficScript Rule Builder, using an easy-to-use graphical user interface to create traffic rules and policies. Click and choose from drop-down menus to create simple conditions and actions.	Y	Y
SSL/TLS Offload	Off-loading SSL/TLS key exchanges and decryption to the Traffic Manager frees up the back-end servers use their full resources for generating content and responding to user requests. Decryption on the Traffic Manager allows for deep packet inspection. Content can be re-encrypted for secure forwarding of requests to the back-end infrastructure.	Y	Y
HTTP Compression	Traffic Manager can compress content returned to the client rather than have that workload undertaken by the back- end servers. Compression of content can result in bandwidth being used more efficiently. offloading this workload from the back-end servers can enable it to serve requests faster.	Y	Y
Event Handling and Action System	Configure appropriate responses for key infrastructure events, including email and SNMP alerts, syslog logging and custom user-supplied scripts.	Y	Y
Service Protection	Traffic Manager can enforce an IP black/white list and limit the number of connections to a service. It can also enforce rules on HTTP content (e.g. enforce RFC compliance) and help protect against malicious attacks such as Denial of Service.	Y	Y
Activity Graphs	Measures performance and load and gives a graphical representation of the results which can identify bottlenecks and identify where and when high loading occurs which can be useful for identifying future upgrade needs.	Y	Y
HTTP Caching	Traffic Manager can store copies of frequently-requested data on the Traffic Manager rather than the back end servers, freeing them up to deliver newly requested content. This can reduce the need for additional servers as traffic grows and speed up the response to end user requests.	Y	Y
Autoscaling	Ensure reliable application service delivery by automatically managing traffic changes in real time, distributing traffic among a pool of virtual servers. It can orchestrate the provisioning and rightsizing of applications, helping to migrate traffic across multiple virtual and cloud platforms.	Y	Y
Bandwidth Management	You can limit the total bandwidth (kbits/ sec) a set of connections can use which can be used to stop a popular site or application taking up so much bandwidth other sites or applications become unavailable. This can enable service providers to enforce access limits based on criteria such as account type or location.	Y	Y
Rate Shaping	Traffic Manager can restrict the number of requests (per min or sec) to a service, from either all or a set of clients. This can stop a small group of intensive users (including spiders) hogging a service, leading to a poor user experience for all users.	Y	Y
Service Level Monitoring	Monitors the performance of a service or application and can issue an alert if it falls below a pre-determined level such as going out of scope of an SLA.	Y	Y
TrafficScript	TrafficScript is a sophisticated programming language integrated within the core of Traffic Manager that enables high performance, highly-configurable control of traffic management policies. TrafficScript rules can control all aspects of how traffic is managed and can choose when and where to apply request rate shaping, bandwidth shaping, routing, compression, and caching to prioritize the most valuable users and deliver the best possible levels of service.	Y	Y
XML Parsing	It can also help parse complex XML data using XPath in order to make informed routing decisions based on embedded content. Also includes supports for the offload and acceleration of the translation between XML variants via XSL Transformations (XSLT).	Y	Y
Java Extensions	Java Extensions can be used to re-use existing code libraries to implement business policies. You can write rules in any language that can target the JVM, including Java, Python, Ruby, and many others. You can use third party libraries, and invoke business rules against specific transactions.	Y	Y
Multi-Site Capable	Deploy services across multiple sites with location-specific configuration and simplify and the management of services from multiple datacenter locations.	Y	Y
Advanced Session Persistence	Ensures all requests from a client go to the same server, enabling application data to persist throughout a session without using cookies (e.g. an e-commerce shopping basket). In addition to session persistence based on IP addressing, Advanced Persistence mechanisms can be leveraged via TrafficScript, including Named Node and Universal Persistence techniques.	Y	Y
Global Load Balancing	Improve service availability by automatically failing over to an alternative datacenter or cloud deployment in the event of a catastrophic failure. Improve service performance by performance- sensitive load balancing and location- based traffic routing.	Y	Y
Route Health Injection	Route Health Injection (RHI) helps to maintain service availability and low-latency networking, by providing rapid service redirection to alternate service hosts.	Y	Y
Web Accelerator Express	Simple content optimization to accelerate the delivery of most web pages, requiring no configuration or tuning.		Y
Web Accelerator	Advanced Web Content Optimization (WCO) technologies, to accelerate page load times up to 4x for HTML applications, including Microsoft SharePoint, content management systems and cloud applications. WCO profiles can be customized for each application.		Y
Web Application Firewall	A scalable Layer-7 Web Application Firewall (WAF) to apply business rules to your online traffic, inspect and block attacks such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS), and help achieve compliance with PCI-DSS and HIPAA and other regulatory demands.		Y
Enterprise Authentication	Support for authentication services such as SAML SP and Kerberos Common Access Cards (CAC)		Y
FIPS	Embedded FIPS 140-2 level 1 cryptographic module per FIPS 140-2 implementation guidance section g.5 guidelines, to support deployments that require FIPS 140-2 level 1 compliance.		Y

Architectural Features

In addition, all Traffic Manager models have the following common architectural benefits:

Feature	Description
Scalability	Traffic Manager can scale horizontally and vertically very easily, across IT environments and different forms of infrastructure ensuring that it can always scale up to match and support demand for an application or a service.
Clustering	Traffic Manager has unmatched scale and performance, and is able to scale-up with the latest generation of multi-core CPUs, and scale out with N+M clustering for reliability and throughput. Note that the Community Edition allow no more than four nodes in a cluster.
RESTful Control API	Allows Traffic Manager to be configured and controlled by a third-party application and simplifies administration of large/ complex configurations. The Control API enables configuration changes to be automated (e.g. In response to an event).