why on my setup even though i am using affinity none, and equal load mainly 1 out of the 2 servers answers all the time. what could be wrong in the setup

Anonymous User 3/17/2005 11:15:31 PM

Can a node have multiple NLB clusters ( i am thninking multi-homed box)?

Anonymous User 1/24/2005 7:09:07 PM

Single-host filtering mode causes NLB to send all application traffic to one cluster member, regardless of where the application request originated.

I believe that above statement is wrong. When it's set to 'single'. The distribution of clients requested is determined only with the source IP address, not along with port number as in 'non' affinity.

Suchun Wu 11/14/2003 5:26:13 AM

I just want to know that net app nas box can use to store dat on nlb setup

sajeev4/16/2002 2:04:07 AM

Regarding configuring two network adapters with NLB:

The help screen has the following entry:
"Set up TCP/IP for Network Lad Balancing on multiple adapters"
It says that if you have two NICs in your server, you should assign a fixed IP address in the TCP/IP properties of the NLB adapter. That's the IP address that you should enter in the NLB's Cluster Parameters dialog. The second NIC doesn't seem to need any particular address.

I am still figuring this out myself, so please try this in the lab before assuming that what I say is correct.

Joe Stern 4/1/2001 9:22:35 AM

In Lab Reports: "Win2K Network Load Balancing" (November 2000), John Green summed up in one sentence the Cisco router problem that had puzzled me even after I had read numerous Microsoft Knowledge Base articles and white papers, as well as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFC) specifying the behavior of Cisco routers. I wasn't sure exactly what the problem was until I read the Network Load Balancing (NLB) article. Can you help me with the following two questions?

1. If you have two NICs, do you need to enter the dedicated IP address into the NLB properties if you give the entry the IP address in the TCP/IP properties of the second (noncluster) NIC and enter the primary IP address in the cluster NIC's TCP/IP properties?

2. In a single NIC configuration in unicast mode, are the NICs still able to share heartbeat information? If so, is that because the traffic is simply broadcast? Can other computers connected on the same subnet receive that heartbeat traffic?


Greg McConnel 12/13/2000 11:13:35 AM

I'm glad you found the article useful. Here's my response to your two questions:

1. Although I've not tested this process, I believe that you can leave the dedicated (Unique) IP address of each server in an NLB cluster blank and enter only the Primary (Cluster) IP address into the NLB properties pages. In this case, you would list only the Primary (Cluster) IP address in the adapter's TCP/IP properties. With this configuration, the cluster NIC would receive only cluster traffic, and individual servers could not be contacted through the cluster NIC. As you note, you would be able to contact individual servers in the cluster at the unique IP address assigned to the nonclustered NIC of each member in the cluster, and this fact is true whether you're coming from a cluster member or a noncluster member. Adding a second unique IP address, the Dedicated IP address, to the clustered NIC in each member of a cluster (both in the NLB properties and in the TCP/IP properties) would give you a second path to communicate with individual members of the cluster from computers that aren't members of the cluster.

2. The heartbeat information is always transmitted from the clustered NIC, whether in unicast mode or multicast mode. A little monitoring of a clustered NIC shows that in both multicast mode and in unicast mode, the heartbeat­--one packet every 10 seconds­--is transmitted using the multicast protocol. Because only the other servers in the cluster need to get the heartbeat packets, the Cisco router multicast problem isn't a factor. Other computers on the same network segment will hear this heartbeat traffic, but (except for network monitors) they won't do anything with the packets.


John Green 12/13/2000 11:04:00 AM