So, here is the story. I had to setup a Network Load Balancing (NLB) between two instances of Windows 2003 R2 running IIS6. Since I have never done it before in my life, I've decided that I'll do a practice run and try setting up two machines with NLB in my VMWare Workstation. After reading all of the guides and manuals on the internet everything started to seem rather simple. And, I've jumped right into it. I used a vm template for Windows 2003 Server R2 that I have created myself just for occasions like this one, my company that I work for is a Microsoft partner, so no licensing issues there. Here is how it went:
Now, before you are going to try and setup any Load Balancing here is something you have to do:
And now you are ready to setup your Network Load Balacing between the two vms using any of the available howtos out there, just make sure to set it up using multicast mode, I was not able to use unicast (even after I've added another network adapter to each server and placed them on a separate vmnet). Good Luck and Happy Network Load Balancing! |