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jamorlandoFlag for United States of America

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Load balanced web servers in Sharepoint 2007

Hi,
Currently in our office we only have one server running sharepoint 2007, both web and database roles are running on this server.  I am experimenting trying to get the web server role on a different server and have that be load balanced.

I found this great tutorial:
http://www.combined-knowledge.com/Downloads/2007/How%20to%20scale%20out%20a%20SharePoint%20farm%20and%20configure%20IIS%207%20Microsoft%20Network%20Load%20Balancing%20on%20windows%20server%202008.pdf

So I created a test environment with a Sharepoint server (SHAREPOINT_T1).  Then I set up another server and added it to the farm just for the web role (SHAREPOINT_T2).

When I go to http://sharepoint_T1:80 it works fine.  However when I go to http://sharepoint_T2:80, it just redirects me back to http://sharepoint_T1:80

Is this something I have to manually configure in IIS?

Thanks,
Jamie
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Member_2_4436132

My advice would be to NOT use Microsoft load balancing but to rather seek out a hardware load balancing solution (even a small Nortel Altion would work) where you can create a load balance pool for http / https, assign it to a virtual IP address and then have both your SharePoint servers as hosts behind it.  Then you can create a DNS record for the VIP and you should have a more robust load balance solution.

Did you follow the directions here for adding an additional SharePoint web server to your farm?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288439(office.12).aspx
T2 should communicate directly with the db server (which I presume is still on T1).  This is a setting specified in the SPConfigWizard.
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ASKER

I actually did perform all the steps listed in:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288439(office.12).aspx

In IIS I see that it created the new sites on T2, and when I ran Sharepoint Technology Configuration Manager, I had it pointed to the database on T1.

But even if I open up internet explorer on T2 and open http://sharepoint_t2 , I see that it sends me right over to http://sharepoint_t1

I checked out DNS and nothing looks out of the ordinary.
Did you adjust AAM (alternate access mappings) on SP CA to do what you want ?  When the SPConfig wizard runs, it sets up a standard configuration which doesn't seem to be what you want.
No, I hadn't gone into AAM ... I actually don't quite grasp what this does, even after reading microsoft's document at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263208(office.12).aspx

I've attached a screenshot of what my AAM screen looks like.  Do I need to add a seperate internal URL for sharepoint_t2 in here in order for http://sharepoint_t2 to work?
AAM.png
Also I noticed that the size and number of files in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0 folders is different between T1 and T2.  I realize that the Central Admin site is stored only on T1, but there is a difference of 200 megs between both directories.  Aren't these supposed to mirror each other?
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ukiran

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I added a new internal URL for sharepoint_t2 .. and I picked Intranet zone .. Is this correct?  Do I need to add T2 for the other sites?
AAM2.png
Only the root url should be modified by AAM. You're good to go.
Thanks ... this seems to be working properly.