Load balancing multiple servers using etherchannels and adapter teaming

exonetinf1nity · ‎08-14-2008

Greetings we have three servers connected to a 3750G stack.

Each server is a member of the HP Proliant range, each have dual nics that are capable of teaming.

Each server will be running an identical app which requires load balancing between the three servers.

For redundancy each server nic will connect to a different switch in the stack and etherchannels will be formed across different switches in the stack to accommodate each network team as per the attached image.

Now for the interesting part, as we cant use round robin dns for said purpose is it possible to add all the servers into a single etherchannel and load balance using source and destination ip address as per the second image.

Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Regards

Giuseppe Larosa · ‎08-14-2008

Hello Mark,

I don't think the second solution will work because the load balancing algorithm could send a packet to the wrong server and then what will happen ?

I would stay with the first solution.

you can try to use NAT to provide a poor man's load-balancing solution providing a virtual ip address outside that is mapped to a different internal ip address for each connection

Hope to help

Giuseppe

exonetinf1nity · ‎08-14-2008

Cheers for the response, indeed i wasn't overly confident with the second approach until i tested it.

NAT is an option, could you think of another method of achieving this?

Regards

exonetinf1nity · ‎08-17-2008

Unfortunately i dont think NAT will be an option at this stage as it appears we wont be able to have control over the firewall in this scenario, any further suggestions welcome.