Configure network load balancing parameters windows server 2003

The Single Host filtering mode provides network traffic meeting the port rule criteria to only one node in the cluster. In this case, creating a rule to allow port TCP SSL port using single host filtering isolates this traffic to the node with the certificate installed.

The Disable Port Range filtering mode tells the cluster which ports not to listen on and to drop these packets without investigation. Administrators should configure port rules and use this filter mode for ports and port ranges that do not need to be load-balanced across the cluster nodes. The Multiple Host filtering mode is probably the most commonly used filtering mode and is also the default.

This mode allows traffic to be handled by all the nodes in the cluster. When traffic is balanced across multiple nodes, the application requirements define how the affinity mode should be set. None This affinity type can send a unique client's requests to all the servers in the cluster during the session.

This can speed up server response times but is well suited only for serving static data to clients. This affinity type works well for general Web browsing and read-only file and FTP servers.

This mode is not used too often but can accommodate client sessions that do require stateful data. This affinity does not work well if all the client requests are proxied through a single firewall. Single This affinity type is the most widely used. After the initial request is received by the cluster nodes from a particular client, that node will handle every request from that client until the session is completed.

This affinity type can accommodate sessions that require stateful data. Because each node in an NLB cluster answers for incoming traffic, the cluster nodes do not allow a switch to cache their network card MAC address because the cluster nodes want to determine how to route the incoming packets.

Because the network switch cannot cache the MAC address associated with the cluster IP addresses, it broadcasts each incoming packet on every port of the switch, which triggers each device connected to respond. When there is heavy traffic going to the cluster, a network switch can become flooded with requests, decreasing performance. For detailed information regarding VLAN configuration and avoiding switch flooding, refer to the network switch documentation.

There are two cluster operation modes: Unicast and Multicast. Most network traffic is handled through Unicast mode. Clients and servers maintain a one-to-one network connection. Multicast networking allows a server to send out information to one multicast address that is then processed by a number of clients. To receive multicast data, a client joins a multicast group associated with the multicast address.

Common applications that use multicast are streaming video Web sites, Internet radio, and Internet training or college courses. Configuring the network cards on the NLB cluster nodes is the first step in building the cluster.

You can use this procedure to connect to multiple hosts and all Network Load Balancing clusters on those hosts. The clusters and hosts are then displayed in Network Load Balancing Manager.

This is particularly useful when a host's Network Load Balancing network adapter is having connectivity problems, but another network adapter is available on that host.

You can also use this procedure to detect and diagnose problems such as cluster hosts that are converging separately.

The Network Load Balancing remote control option presents many security risks. Only use remote control on a secure computer inside your firewall. Because of the many security risks remote control presents, Microsoft recommends that you do not enable the remote control feature. When you are using Nlb. If you are configuring a cluster or host by running Nlb. Make sure that only users in the local Administrators group have access to the host list file.

The number and type of rules must be exactly the same for each host in the cluster. If a host tries to join the cluster with a different number of rules from the other hosts, it is not accepted as part of the cluster, and the rest of the cluster continues to handle the traffic as before. At the same time, a message is logged in the Windows Event log. If this occurs, view the Event log to determine which host is in conflict with the other cluster hosts, resolve the conflict, and then restart Network Load Balancing on that host.

Configure Network Load Balancing Parameters To configure Network Load Balancing parameters, you must configure the cluster parameters, host parameters, and port rules. Right-click Local Area Connection, and then click Properties. Click the Host Parameters tab. Type a value in the Priority Unique host identifier box. Click OK. Click the Port Rules tab. Click the Port Rules tab, click the rule that you want to remove, and then click Remove.

If Network Load Balancing Manager does not already list the cluster, connect to the cluster. Right-click the cluster, and then click Cluster Properties. On the File menu, click Load Host List. Troubleshooting The number and type of rules must be exactly the same for each host in the cluster. Click Advanced. Click ADD. We will add the second server by right clicking the cluster and selecting Add Host to Cluster:. Now you will need to follow the same procedure as we did earlier for the first node.

Once the wizard is completed, the second node will be added to the NLB cluster. With this NLB cluster we can now distribute traffic destined for our applications between these two hosts. Hope this article will serve you well in understanding how this technology works and how to install and configure NLB clusters.

Wish you a great day and stay tuned for the following articles. If you are just using two servers that are load balanced using NLB then you need to allow only the listening ports of the web servers. Suppose you have one site that accepts only secured requests port The NLB service will only redirect an incoming request between the web servers that are part of the load balancer thus you just need to open the rules from the NLB server to each Web Server on port both ways.

Hope this will server you well. We have a windows console application and it is running as a windows scheduler, can we depend on NLB concept and just keep another instance of the app running on different server.

My question is that, Which type of applications can configure on NLB. Means which type of applications supported on NLB?? Download Trial. Buy Now. For testing purposes I will add a random IP address: The next section is used to configure cluster parameters. Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support. Feedback will be sent to Microsoft: By pressing the submit button, your feedback will be used to improve Microsoft products and services.

Privacy policy. You can use NLB to manage two or more servers as a single virtual cluster. NLB enhances the availability and scalability of Internet server applications such as those used on web, FTP, firewall, proxy, virtual private network VPN , and other mission-critical servers. By combining two or more computers that are running applications into a single virtual cluster, NLB provides reliability and performance for web servers and other mission-critical servers.

The servers in an NLB cluster are called hosts , and each host runs a separate copy of the server applications. NLB distributes incoming client requests across the hosts in the cluster. You can configure the load that is to be handled by each host. You can also add hosts dynamically to the cluster to handle increased load.

NLB can also direct all traffic to a designated single host, which is called the default host. NLB allows all of the computers in the cluster to be addressed by the same set of IP addresses, and it maintains a set of unique, dedicated IP addresses for each host. For load-balanced applications, when a host fails or goes offline, the load is automatically redistributed among the computers that are still operating. When it is ready, the offline computer can transparently rejoin the cluster and regain its share of the workload, which allows the other computers in the cluster to handle less traffic.