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Comment by AdrianB1 | Hacker News Reader

Not specific to this release, but for an system architect that is taking the first look ever to the product:

- the site does not do a good job of describing the products and what they do. https://www.haproxy.com/products/haproxy-enterprise-edition/ has a download button as the start and tells nothing about the product.

- it is hard to find requirements from the first page. (https://www.haproxy.com/documentation/hapee/2-2r1/getting-st...)

- is there any a page with basic architecture of the product? Some diagrams with typical configurations.

- is there a simpler HA setup than the 3 layer one here: https://www.haproxy.com/documentation/hapee/2-2r1/high-avail... ? What is the simplest HA configuration for 2 web servers?

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Thanks for the feedback. I've provided a few replies below but I think you have made some great points and I will share them internally.

> - the site does not do a good job of describing the products and what they do.

The page does lead off by telling you it is a software load balancer, but I agree, we can do a better job of giving more information on the product itself. Most people who pursue HAProxy Enterprise are already familiar with HAProxy. With that said, we're actually working on a complete overhaul to this page and I believe the new version will address this.

> - it is hard to find requirements from the first page.

This is just a reference point and typically organizations are working closely with a sales engineer.

> - is there a simpler HA setup than the 3 layer one here:

A simpler version is found under active/standby here [1]

[1] https://www.haproxy.com/documentation/hapee/2-2r1/high-avail...

Thank you. Just for info, my personal experience working for a very big American company is that every time I call a product company for information, I get intensely called back months in a row even if the product does not meet our needs, so I prefer not to do that anymore and to dig myself for info until I figure if that is looking very promising. Maybe it is not the same in your case, but who acts assuming it's an exception?

How did you get a system architect title while somehow never looking at haproxy in the last.... 15 years?!

Downvote me all you want but “architects” need to look at the solution landscape at least once in 15 years.

Plenty areas of software where HAProxy is not part of the relevant "solution landscape".

Systems architect?! I want a load balancer. What’s your top 5 excluding HAProxy?

You don't need 5, especially when the load balancing is part of the network or infrastructure team that are a different group. Some companies have hardware load balancers, some use products like VMWare NSX or both, depending on the needs. When you are a Windows shop, HAProxy is not on the short list, hearing about it and actually knowing it are 2 different sides of the coin.

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