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Paul Hinett
Asked: 2010-02-21 20:10:31 +0800 CST

Load-Balancing 2 windows web servers - Software based

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I am not sure if this is possible or even reccomended...

I did have 1 web server which is basically used just to handle file uploads (around 130+ per day, and average of 100mb each).

I now have a backup server in place on the same network which basically just mirrors the files uploaded in case of a disk failure.

I have done a little thinking and thought it seemed like a waste of a server just being used to store files dormantly, would it be possible to load balance these 2 servers to share the load.

I know i would need to keep the uploaded data in sync between the 2 servers, but is there some software which can load balance with just 2 machines?

They are both running Windows Server 2003 if that makes any difference.

Thank you!

windows-server-2003 load-balancing

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    would it be possible to load balance these 2 servers to share the load

    Well, are you sure that's not unwanted complexity? As you describe your setup, I imagine your single server is never breaking a sweat. You seem to have a need for data security and uptime, not for additional capacity.

    is there some software which can load balance with just 2 machines?

    Windows Network Load Balacing (NLB) comes built-in with Windows Server. It's a load balancing / high availability solution that works at the IP layer. NLB would probably be the first pick for your needs. I don't know how a fail-over in the middle of a file upload would be handled (you didn't specify which protocol is used). My guess is that the transfer would time out and have to be re-started manually.

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