gadkins
asked on
How to create a Win 2003 Server IIS Web Farm
I've been looking around on MSDN and have failed to find a decent article on how to go about setting up a web farm.
I've currently got one production server that runs Classic ASP which spins up VB 6 COM components, talking to Oracle database via OLE Provider.
Now, I want to add a second Web server to implement load balancing.
Because I need to maintain session state, I was thinking to have a load balancing server in front of two web servers that will query the two web servers and redirect the initial request to the server that is at that time under the least load. From then on, for the duration of the session, the user's multiple requests should continue to be routed to the server their initial request was routed to (that being the server that would recognise their session).
So the published URL would be something like "www.mysite.com" which would be the load balancer, and the load balancer would direct the request to either ww1.mysite.com or ww2.mysite.com. All links wthin the site would be relative, and so the user would simply talk to ww1 or ww2 from then on. The two servers are running SSL.
Is this the best way to do this? And if so, can you provide a step-by-step process for me to follow, or a number of URLs of articles which do so?
Thanks.
I've currently got one production server that runs Classic ASP which spins up VB 6 COM components, talking to Oracle database via OLE Provider.
Now, I want to add a second Web server to implement load balancing.
Because I need to maintain session state, I was thinking to have a load balancing server in front of two web servers that will query the two web servers and redirect the initial request to the server that is at that time under the least load. From then on, for the duration of the session, the user's multiple requests should continue to be routed to the server their initial request was routed to (that being the server that would recognise their session).
So the published URL would be something like "www.mysite.com" which would be the load balancer, and the load balancer would direct the request to either ww1.mysite.com or ww2.mysite.com. All links wthin the site would be relative, and so the user would simply talk to ww1 or ww2 from then on. The two servers are running SSL.
Is this the best way to do this? And if so, can you provide a step-by-step process for me to follow, or a number of URLs of articles which do so?
Thanks.
humeniuk
Have you looked at the MS Windows 2003 Clustering Services page at www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/clustering/default.mspx? It looks like a good place to start and links to a lot of more detailed info (like the Clustering Services in WIndows Server 2003 TechNet pages at www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/technologies/clustering/default.mspx and a number of 'how to' articles).
Windows Load balancing service will continue to direct a client to the same server they initially reach in order to preserve session state as well as other things like SSL session when affinity is configured to something other than None (and possibly even then).
The links humeniuk provided should give you a good start on setting up a cluster. :-)
Dave Dietz
The links humeniuk provided should give you a good start on setting up a cluster. :-)
Dave Dietz
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Damn, obviously I have no idea how to award assisted answers. Thanks for your input humeniuk.