What's the improvement from Nlb.exe (Win2003) to the most recent o

Folks, I always knew from my personal experience that Microsoft NLB is not a
recommended load balancing and failover solution for mission critical
systems, especially when I expect up to 10,000+ users to connect to my
servers.

My question is, can someone confirm whether the below statement (published
on April 2006) still is true for the most recent version of Windows (R2 and
Longhorn)? I think it is, but I'd appreciate if someone can confirm that the
most current nlb.exe hasn't had any major improvement and it reflects the
truth outlined below. By the way, I thank Microsoft for the honesty of
publishing the information below.



A note about NLB
Using hardware load balancers is strongly recommended. Microsoft Windows®
NLB may be used for evaluation, test, and pilot systems or for small,
nonmission critical deployments.

There are limitations with using NLB:

1.
Remote administration using the Live Communications Server snap-in is not
supported. The front-end Enterprise Servers will have to be managed by
running the administrative snap-in locally and not from a remote computer.

2.
Multiple pools within an organization are not supported.


When using NLB, be aware of the following:

• NLB depends on the network and operating system being available on each
server; and not on whether the server is running the Live Communications
Server. There may be instances where NLB continues to route connections to a
server–even when the Live Communications Server service is not running.

• Routing of connections is static and independent of server load or
occupancy. It is not based on latency, or the server with the fewest
connections.

• All packets are forwarded to all servers, and only one server will process
the packet. This approach has implications on scaling and performance of the
servers and needs careful consideration.

 

Could you provide the source of the information quoted below? Many
Microsoft CSS / PSS folks [Chuck, Alan and others] read these groups and
could provide additional insight / input as to whether or not the
information referenced might be outdated or should simply be refreshed.

--
Ryan Sokolowski
MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, BCFP


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