How to Configure Network Load Balancing Web Services with Back-End SQL Server

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This article was previously published under Q268317

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SUMMARY

This article describes how to configure Network Load Balancing Web services with a back-end SQL server.

Network Load Balancing distributes incoming Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) traffic between multiple servers. When you use Network Load Balancing, your clustered programs, especially Web-server programs, can handle more traffic and provide faster response times.

MORE INFORMATION

Network Load Balancing can provide fault tolerance and scalable Web services that use a back-end SQL server. The preferred configuration for this scenario is:

Two network adapters for each host are required: one network adapter for cluster traffic and heartbeats, the other network adapter for replication and back-end processes.
Locate all cluster hosts on a single broadcast subnet.
For additional security, assign a private Internet Protocol (IP) address to the back-end network adapter.
Use an Lmhosts hosts file to ensure that the Hosts in the cluster use the back-end network adapter and private address to communicate with each other.

For additional information about configuring load balancing settings ingeneral, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

198496 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/198496/EN-US/ ) How to Configure WLBS Port Rules

For additional information about load balancing settings for specificconfigurations, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

219285 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/219285/EN-US/ ) Load Balancing FTP with WLBS

232141 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/232141/EN-US/ ) Load Balancing Telnet with WLBS

219277 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/219277/EN-US/ ) Load Balancing HTTP with WLBS

203597 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/203597/EN-US/ ) Load Balancing PPTP with WLBS