Balancing Act - What you really ought to know about Windows Server NLB

re: Balancing Act - What you really ought to know about Windows Server NLB

Pete Sullivan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:03:29 GMT

The issue with NLB and Layer 3 or "Smart" switches is a fact of the function of the technology. It can be worked around as simply as utilizing a Layer 2 VLAN on your Layer 3 switch. There are some great new enhancements as well for NLB with Windows 2008 R2. One is the concept of "Extended Affinity" and the other is the use of Powershell as the new NLB command line interface.

Here's a great link http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725691.aspx

re: Balancing Act - What you really ought to know about Windows Server NLB

PK — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:23:40 GMT

Derwyddon:

I disagree. Delve into the technology behind Multicast and Anycats and you will see that this is just a part/drawback of using that technology. As with NLB gettig to work proberly the way it works right now, these techniques are a neccesary part.

You could argue that MS should not use multicast/anycast anymore. But I sure don't have an alternative which enables al current features, do you?

I will agree with you this far; the real misser here i that you need to use a hub or 'dumb down' your L3 switch AND NIC teaming does not work.

Dumbing down your switch or using a HUB result in a single point of faillure in your switching network (we use a redundant network of smart switches in the networking core)

Now you have high cost redundant network, a redundant set of computers (running NLB) and no way of attaching it to several redundant routers without introducing problems.

Luckily we do not have the above problem; HP switches (series 2600 and up) handle the traffic fine, even amongst switches (although broadcasting over every port; which is a drawback of using multicast)

re: Balancing Act - What you really ought to know about Windows Server NLB

Derwyddon — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:04:08 GMT

You know that advice to use switch level 2 or even hubs (really a switch level 1) is to advice that we should use windows 98 in place present networking technology. You should think why, if you select this balancing technology, you should use a "deprecated" networking technology (of course, you can use win98 if you want).