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tzup
Asked: 2011-03-15 23:00:09 +0800 CST

How to integrate a failover WS without client reconfiguration?

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I have a web service hosted by IIS server 1 and another web service hosted by IIS server 2.

Is there a way to have the WS on server 2 automatically pick up when the WS on server 1 is unavailable, without having to reconfigure the clients (which are desktop applications in this case).

There must be some tools that perform such tasks, please help.

Thank you.

EDIT The two web services expose the same functionality, so basically I am trying to setup a high-availability cluster (ie failover cluster)

iis cluster failovercluster

1 Answers

  1. MSCS failover might work here - see http://blogs.iis.net/thomad/archive/2009/10/27/iis7-and-failover-clustering.aspx for a discussion and links about IIS 7 and MSCS failover.

    The only real alternative is to find a load balancer. For the client not to be interrupted implies a virtual IP is required, and some interruption may be inevitable in any case (a TCP reconnection might be required).

    If the two web services are the same i.e. are 100% interchangeable, consider an NLB cluster, or a reverse proxy cluster that can perform health monitoring. (NLB doesn't do health monitoring; NLB doesn't care).

    On the Microsoft side, TMG or ISA Server could do this, with health monitoring, and clustering built in. Application Request Routing for IIS 7 could also perform this failover and health monitoring role, but you'd need to manually cluster the ARR boxes.

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