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Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

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288 Part IV: Deployment Scenarios<br />

Configuring Network Load Balancing<br />

Network Load Balancing (NLB) is a clustering technology that allows multiple servers<br />

that are configured the same to service clients. It distributes the incoming connections<br />

between all the servers in the cluster. In a SharePoint Portal Server farm<br />

environment, NLB is used to distribute load between all the front-end Web servers in<br />

the farm. This gives the farm redundancy <strong>and</strong> the ability to scale out.<br />

Note Windows Network Load Balancing distributes load <strong>and</strong> provides<br />

failover for the Web servers only. Although the search services for the<br />

medium server farm operate on the Web server computers, search services<br />

use their own load-balancing mechanisms, <strong>and</strong> therefore Windows NLB<br />

does not affect them.<br />

SharePoint Portal Server does not depend on NLB, so any load-balancing technology<br />

can be used. NLB is discussed here because it comes with all Windows<br />

Server 2003 editions. If your corporate environment uses a different load-balancing<br />

mechanism, feel free to use that instead.<br />

NLB works by setting the same physical (MAC) address on all nodes of the<br />

cluster. In essence, this makes all the machines’ network cards act like a single network<br />

card. The MAC address used for NLB cannot be manually configured. It is set<br />

by Windows based on the IP address chosen for the cluster. The following sections<br />

detail configuring <strong>and</strong> testing NLB for use in a SharePoint Portal Server farm.<br />

To configure the first front-end NIC (SPS-01)<br />

1. In Control Panel, click Network Connections.<br />

2. Right-click Local Area Network Connection <strong>and</strong> then click Properties.<br />

3. Under This connection uses the following items, click Internet Protocol<br />

(TCP/IP).<br />

4. Click Properties.<br />

5. Click Use the following IP address, <strong>and</strong> type in the IP address with your<br />

assigned front-end static IP address. (This is the IP address for the machine, not<br />

the cluster.)<br />

6. Type in the subnet mask associated with this IP address.<br />

7. Type in the default gateway with your assigned front-end gateway.<br />

8. Click Advanced.<br />

9. Under IP address, click Add.<br />

10. In the IP Address box, type the cluster IP address, as illustrated in Figure 12-1.

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