Microsoft Network Load Balancing with Network Teaming.

[Michael Goh_2]

Hi,
I would like to check with all you experts out there that does anyone of your have any experience implementing Microsoft Network Load Balancing (NLB) with HP NIC teaming?? If so, does it works? Is there anything that I have to take note of while implementing NLB with HP NIC teaming?

Because I am currently trying to implement a NLB cluster on 2 HP Proliant DL380G4 server with NIC teaming, but the NLB doesn't seems to work. All the traffic that is sent to the cluster have all gone to a single node. Does that means that NLB cannot works with NIC teaming? If possible, why is it happening? Any work around for this?

Appreciate very much for your kind enlightenment.

Thanks a lot in advance.

[Ruslan]

Michael

You can use HP Network Configuration Utility to increase availability or throughput per HOST. MS NBL use another method to configure load balancing
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/technologies/clustering/nlbbp.mspx

[Ole Thomsen_1]

No, it does not work - have a look at

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=861069

Ole

[Connery]

Yes, NLB and HP NIC Teaming work fine as long as you use NLB in Multicast mode.

Also, I recommend that you don't enable IGMP snooping support for NLB in multicast mode.

You may need to add static ARP entries on your router/s if you have problems communicating outside of your local area network. Some routers don't like unicast IP addresses mapping to multicast MAC addresses.

[Michael Goh_2]

Hi all,

Thanks a lot for all your kind response. I really appreciate that.

Guess I would have to configure the NLB with the NIC teaming under the mode of multicast.

Well, could anyone briefly explain to me as to why NIC teaming could not co-exist with NLB under the unicast mode. I need to have a clearer picture on this.

Thanks a lot once again.

[Ole Thomsen_1]

From http://support.microsoft.com/?id=278431 :

"When you use Network Load Balancing (NLB), network adapters that provide fault tolerance may cause problems. When you use NLB in unicast mode, NLB uses a shared virtual media access control address. The shared virtual media access control address is used instead of the physical adapter's media access control address for all communications to the load-balanced IP addresses. With some teaming adapters, the virtual media access control address cannot to overwrite the physical media access control address. This causes in IP address conflicts in the cluster."

Ole