Re: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups
Karthik, Very elegant. I guess it sums up my experiences in general. NLB will work just fine if you don't have issues with ANY node and you simply want to balance between existing nodes. As long as something goes wrong on a node, you have no ability to automatically pull it out of the balance unless the service is stopped, or the machine is offline. -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Karthik Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 11:45 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups ** Hi, I just implemented NLB for server groups. NLB was implemented for Mid-tiers and also for App Server group. As someone has mentioned before, its does not provide all the different modes that other hardware load balancers do. only option is for load balancing based on the server load. However, there are some problems with NLB. For Ex: If Mid Tier 1 is down but the server hosting it still provides a heartbeat, clients are still sent to it. This poses a problem when it comes to balancing load to mid tier servers. But for app servers this can be handled using OOB provided configuration, "Enable lifespan" on mid tier config page. By enabling this, mid-tiers will understand if an app server is down and the requests will not be sent to the app servers. however, if the app servers have performance problems and are services are still up, requests will still be sent to them. Only way to mitigate the negative scenarios described above would be to stop a particular host from the NLB manager, while you are debugging the problem with the mid-tier being down/app server having performance issues. that said, below are some inportant configs you need to keep in mind: 1- load balancer should be configured in Multi cast mode if its NLB. Network guys should understand this. 2 - affinity should be set to None. 3 - load balancer name should be FQDN I.e. fully qualified domain name. Regarding point 2 above: this is applicable for only application load balancer. For mid tier load balancer(if you are planning to have one in place) the affinity parameter should be set to single. Sometimes, NLB is configured in unicast mode. in this case, there is a need to add an additional network adapter and this causes license issues as in unicast mode, the NLB makes the mac address of all the NLB hosts the same. to mitigate this, please follow the attached link to not allow the mac address to be the same for all the hosts: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb742455.aspx <http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb742455.aspx> hope this helps. My personal and also per the article found in above link, its good to go for multi-cast mode. Regards, Karthik On 10 September 2012 22:49, Mauricio M. wrote: ** Hello, thank you, what would be some of those specific configurations or capabilities? -Mauricio 2012/9/10 Longwing, LJ CTR MDA/IC Mauricio, I recently re-looked at MS NLB and found it to be 'lacking' of proper load balancing configuration capabilities, but I haven't looked real close at it either. I much prefer an independent LB tool. -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Mauricio M. Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 11:06 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups ** Hello, Does anyone have any experience or feedback using Microsoft NLB for load balancing with AR System 7.6.04? There are a few old posts about NLB but nothing recent Thank you in advance, Mauricio _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are" _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are"
Re: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups
Completely agree with you! Regards, Karthik On 10 September 2012 23:27, Longwing, LJ CTR MDA/IC wrote: > Well...one thing that I have always looked for in a load balancing is a > 'smart' capability to tell you that something is functional. I have found > most of the balancers on the market to not allow what I consider smart > balancing. Most will do a ping, open a port, check a URL, that sort of > thing, but in a Remedy world just because ARServer allows you to open the > port it is on, doesn't mean that the Remedy is functional. Just because > the Mid-Tier login page opens doesn't mean that it's functional. I have > found that some LB suites have various scripting capabilities, but in > general I have found creating API based monitoring tools that provide 'port > opening' capabilities to be a 'full' solution. The general capabilities > that I'm referring to are session affinity (NLB has this apparently). The > rest are probes, the ability to probe your intended subject to see if the > capabilities you are looking for are functional. As previously discussed, > most of these probes are 'dumb', but they are smarter than nothing. NLB > doesn't seem to have any probe capability, the simple 'am I on' is enough > to route traffic to the node. I personally think that it's important to > probe deeply into the application to know that it's not only on, but > functional before routing traffic, and NLB doesn't meet this probing > requirement. > > -Original Message- > From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto: > arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Mauricio M. > Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 11:20 AM > To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG > Subject: Re: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups > > ** Hello, > > thank you, what would be some of those specific configurations or > capabilities? > > -Mauricio > > > 2012/9/10 Longwing, LJ CTR MDA/IC > > > Mauricio, > I recently re-looked at MS NLB and found it to be 'lacking' of > proper load balancing configuration capabilities, but I haven't looked real > close at it either. I much prefer an independent LB tool. > > -Original Message- > From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto: > arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Mauricio M. > Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 11:06 AM > To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG > Subject: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups > > ** Hello, > > > Does anyone have any experience or feedback using Microsoft NLB > for load balancing with AR System 7.6.04? > > There are a few old posts about NLB but nothing recent > > Thank you in advance, > > Mauricio > > _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ > > > ___ > UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org > attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are" > > > > _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ > > > ___ > UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org > attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are" > ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are"
Re: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups
Well...one thing that I have always looked for in a load balancing is a 'smart' capability to tell you that something is functional. I have found most of the balancers on the market to not allow what I consider smart balancing. Most will do a ping, open a port, check a URL, that sort of thing, but in a Remedy world just because ARServer allows you to open the port it is on, doesn't mean that the Remedy is functional. Just because the Mid-Tier login page opens doesn't mean that it's functional. I have found that some LB suites have various scripting capabilities, but in general I have found creating API based monitoring tools that provide 'port opening' capabilities to be a 'full' solution. The general capabilities that I'm referring to are session affinity (NLB has this apparently). The rest are probes, the ability to probe your intended subject to see if the capabilities you are looking for are functional. As previously discussed, most of these probes are 'dumb', but they are smarter than nothing. NLB doesn't seem to have any probe capability, the simple 'am I on' is enough to route traffic to the node. I personally think that it's important to probe deeply into the application to know that it's not only on, but functional before routing traffic, and NLB doesn't meet this probing requirement. -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Mauricio M. Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 11:20 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups ** Hello, thank you, what would be some of those specific configurations or capabilities? -Mauricio 2012/9/10 Longwing, LJ CTR MDA/IC Mauricio, I recently re-looked at MS NLB and found it to be 'lacking' of proper load balancing configuration capabilities, but I haven't looked real close at it either. I much prefer an independent LB tool. -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Mauricio M. Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 11:06 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups ** Hello, Does anyone have any experience or feedback using Microsoft NLB for load balancing with AR System 7.6.04? There are a few old posts about NLB but nothing recent Thank you in advance, Mauricio _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are" _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are"
Re: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups
Hi, I just implemented NLB for server groups. NLB was implemented for Mid-tiers and also for App Server group. As someone has mentioned before, its does not provide all the different modes that other hardware load balancers do. only option is for load balancing based on the server load. However, there are some problems with NLB. For Ex: If Mid Tier 1 is down but the server hosting it still provides a heartbeat, clients are still sent to it. This poses a problem when it comes to balancing load to mid tier servers. But for app servers this can be handled using OOB provided configuration, "Enable lifespan" on mid tier config page. By enabling this, mid-tiers will understand if an app server is down and the requests will not be sent to the app servers. however, if the app servers have performance problems and are services are still up, requests will still be sent to them. Only way to mitigate the negative scenarios described above would be to stop a particular host from the NLB manager, while you are debugging the problem with the mid-tier being down/app server having performance issues. that said, below are some inportant configs you need to keep in mind: 1- load balancer should be configured in Multi cast mode if its NLB. Network guys should understand this. 2 - affinity should be set to None. 3 - load balancer name should be FQDN I.e. fully qualified domain name. Regarding point 2 above: this is applicable for only application load balancer. For mid tier load balancer(if you are planning to have one in place) the affinity parameter should be set to single. Sometimes, NLB is configured in unicast mode. in this case, there is a need to add an additional network adapter and this causes license issues as in unicast mode, the NLB makes the mac address of all the NLB hosts the same. to mitigate this, please follow the attached link to not allow the mac address to be the same for all the hosts: *http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb742455.aspx * hope this helps. My personal and also per the article found in above link, its good to go for multi-cast mode. Regards, Karthik On 10 September 2012 22:49, Mauricio M. wrote: > ** Hello, > > thank you, what would be some of those specific configurations or > capabilities? > > -Mauricio > > 2012/9/10 Longwing, LJ CTR MDA/IC > > Mauricio, >> I recently re-looked at MS NLB and found it to be 'lacking' of proper >> load balancing configuration capabilities, but I haven't looked real close >> at it either. I much prefer an independent LB tool. >> >> -Original Message- >> From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto: >> arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Mauricio M. >> Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 11:06 AM >> To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG >> Subject: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups >> >> ** Hello, >> >> Does anyone have any experience or feedback using Microsoft NLB for load >> balancing with AR System 7.6.04? >> >> There are a few old posts about NLB but nothing recent >> >> Thank you in advance, >> >> Mauricio >> _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ >> >> >> ___ >> UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org >> attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are" >> > > _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ > ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are"
Re: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups
Hello, thank you, what would be some of those specific configurations or capabilities? -Mauricio 2012/9/10 Longwing, LJ CTR MDA/IC > Mauricio, > I recently re-looked at MS NLB and found it to be 'lacking' of proper load > balancing configuration capabilities, but I haven't looked real close at it > either. I much prefer an independent LB tool. > > -Original Message- > From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto: > arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Mauricio M. > Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 11:06 AM > To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG > Subject: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups > > ** Hello, > > Does anyone have any experience or feedback using Microsoft NLB for load > balancing with AR System 7.6.04? > > There are a few old posts about NLB but nothing recent > > Thank you in advance, > > Mauricio > _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ > > > ___ > UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org > attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are" > ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are"
Re: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups
Mauricio, I recently re-looked at MS NLB and found it to be 'lacking' of proper load balancing configuration capabilities, but I haven't looked real close at it either. I much prefer an independent LB tool. -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Mauricio M. Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 11:06 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: MS Network Load Balancing (NLB) with AR Server Groups ** Hello, Does anyone have any experience or feedback using Microsoft NLB for load balancing with AR System 7.6.04? There are a few old posts about NLB but nothing recent Thank you in advance, Mauricio _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are"
