Solved: Basic Network Load Balancing - 2xWindows 2003 Servers

peter_farmer · ‎08-23-2009

Hi All,

We have two web-servers running the same front-end application.

One server is a physical server directly connected to our core switch - the server is a Virtual Server running in a VMWARE environment which resides on IBM blade servers (IBM Bladecentre.)

We have 2x4500R switches.

We basically want to do some load-balancing between the two - not so much for the actual load itself but for redundancy so if one server isn't availble, we don't have to change DNS entries or worry about asking users to wait for DNS round-robin.

Can someone point me in the right direction on how to:

1. configure NLB - both server and switching

2. principles for getting it to work with a VMWARE environment

I'm a little confused on what exactly needs to be done to get it to work correctly.

Any help would be great!

-Pete

andrewswanson · ‎08-25-2009

hi peter

yes, arp and mac entries on the core switch. the VMs we were loadbalancing could be on any of 4 or 5 enclosures so our mac entries looked something like:

mac-address-table static xxxx.xxxx.xxxx vlan yyy interface Po1 Po2 Po5 Po6 Po9 Po10 Po12 Po13

we've since moved to a hardware solution for loadbalancing but the above config worked pretty well for us.

hth

andy

View solution in original post

andrewswanson · ‎08-24-2009

hello

have used the following url to setup ms nlb before.

hth

andy

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps708/products_configuration_example09186a0080a07203.shtml

peter_farmer · ‎08-24-2009

Thanks Andy,

Did you configure the arp and mac entries on the core switch/router? The servers span over 3 different switches and the VM is connected over PortChannel trunks.

andrewswanson · ‎08-25-2009

hi peter

yes, arp and mac entries on the core switch. the VMs we were loadbalancing could be on any of 4 or 5 enclosures so our mac entries looked something like:

mac-address-table static xxxx.xxxx.xxxx vlan yyy interface Po1 Po2 Po5 Po6 Po9 Po10 Po12 Po13

we've since moved to a hardware solution for loadbalancing but the above config worked pretty well for us.

hth

andy