I want to know well Microsoft’s Network Load Balancing (NLB) clusters in the Advanced Server 2000 version works. If you considered using it but decided otherwise I would like to hear your comments. If you currently use it, any info on it's performance, stability, and why you selected it over a hardware alternative would be cool !!!

Thanks,

Hopper

I never used it, because

1.) microsoft advanced server OS COSTS a lot!
2.) it's microsoft
3.) it's software solution....

I would suggest you to consider some hardware balancing devices, for example the CSS line from Cisco, that does WWW traffic balancing and is content/cookie aware, high throughput and X more features.

Plus, it's something like $8k..$10k nowadays.. just a bit more expensive than if you sum up the hardware you need for Windows environment (considering you will use Cisco CSS LB with unix backends) and licences for Windows Advanced Server..

just my 2 cents

MS NLB service is actually pretty nice, but is only useful in certain situations/set-ups. What are you trying to do?

Plus, it's something like $8k..$10k nowadays.. just a bit more expensive than if you sum up the hardware you need for Windows environment (considering you will use Cisco CSS LB with unix backends) and licences for Windows Advanced Server.. Actually it would be much, much cheaper to have two servers running MS AS. Also, if you some type of hardware LB this can cause a single point of failure. Just some thoughts :)

yes, correct. One hardware LB device is a single point of failure...
You can buy a second device and fail-over module, but will cost of course ( CSS has this 'feature' ).

But this will cost much more with 2 server 'nodes'... comparing to software MS AS LB

We (my former employer spit) tested MS NLB out in the lab, and ran into a couple of problems. The biggest was the amount of broadcast traffic generated by NLB, even in a test environment.

If you are going to use NLB, I would recommend segmenting that part of the network off with a router (which kind of defeats the purpose of redundancy...but it is better than taking down the whole network with a broadcast storm :)).

I'll preface this by saying I am a hardware bigot, I prefer to see things done with hardware rather than software, but I agree with apollo, you are better off with a hardware solution. Foundry ServerIrons are only $8K or so a piece (more with discount, and Foundry is desperate for sales right now). In my opinion you get better redundancy, and more efficiency with hardware over software.

If the $8k price tag is too high, Coyote Point (http://www.coyotepoint.com/) makes decent boxes for about half the price. I wouldn't use them to load balance multiple websites, but they can definitely manage a single high traffic site fine.

:)

Some Load Balancing stuff:

www.sysmaster.com
www.f5.com
www.radware.com
www.resonate.com

Originally posted by apollo
I never used it, because

1.) microsoft advanced server OS COSTS a lot!
2.) it's microsoft
3.) it's software solution....

I would suggest you to consider some hardware balancing devices, for example the CSS line from Cisco, that does WWW traffic balancing and is content/cookie aware, high throughput and X more features.

Plus, it's something like $8k..$10k nowadays.. just a bit more expensive than if you sum up the hardware you need for Windows environment (considering you will use Cisco CSS LB with unix backends) and licences for Windows Advanced Server..

just my 2 cents

If you selct a Dedicated Server Provider who is Microsoft Authorized Applications Service Provider, then the huge license cost of Win2K Advanced Server can be avoided. The ASP program allows the License to be used for a Monthly Service Fee, thus reducing the cost. Just a thought.