Record the servers designated as the Management Server and the selected tolerance in Table A-3 in Appendix A. Evaluating the Characteristics Tables 2 through 5 compare the complexity, cost, fault tolerance, and security of the two Network Load Balancing options: software-based NLB and hardware load balancer. 2. Complexity Characteristics of NLB and Hardware Load Balancer Option Characteristics Level NLB NLB is simple to implement. Low Hardware Hardware load balancers tend to increase the complexity of Medium load the environment due to the need for two and the additional balancer knowledge needed. Table 3. Cost Characteristics of NLB and Hardware Load Balancer Option Characteristics Level NLB NLB is available in all editions of Windows Server 2003 and Low later. As a best practice, an additional network adapter is added to all nodes in the cluster to create a private network for the cluster heartbeat. Hardware Two or more hardware load balancers are needed to ensure High load tolerance. If only one hardware load balancer is used, it balancer becomes the single point of failure. Table 4. Fault-Tolerance Characteristics of NLB and Hardware Load Balancer Option Characteristics Level NLB NLB only provides fault tolerance at the machine level. If the → application layer fails, NLB will not detect it. Hardware Hardware load balancers are able to detect application layer ↑ load failures. balancer Table 5. Security Characteristics of NLB and Hardware Load Balancer Option Characteristics Level NLB NLB does not affect security if properly implemented. → Hardware Hardware load balancers can increase security of the ↑ load infrastructure due to rudimentary packet screening features. balancer
Record the servers designated as the Management Server and the selected tolerance in Table A-3 in Appendix A. Evaluating the Characteristics Tables 2 through 5 compare the complexity, cost, fault tolerance, and security of the two Network Load Balancing options: software-based NLB and hardware load balancer. 2. Complexity Characteristics of NLB and Hardware Load Balancer Option Characteristics Level NLB NLB is simple to implement. Low Hardware load balancer Hardware load balancers tend to increase the complexity of the environment due to the need for two and the additional knowledge needed. Medium Table 3. Cost Characteristics of NLB and Hardware Load Balancer Option Characteristics Level NLB NLB is available in all editions of Windows Server 2003 and later. As a best practice, an additional network adapter is added to all nodes in the cluster to create a private network for the cluster heartbeat. Low Hardware load balancer Two or more hardware load balancers are needed to ensure tolerance. If only one hardware load balancer is used, it becomes the single point of failure. High Table 4. Fault-Tolerance Characteristics of NLB and Hardware Load Balancer Option Characteristics Level NLB NLB only provides fault tolerance at the machine level. If the application layer fails, NLB will not detect it. → Hardware load balancer Hardware load balancers are able to detect application layer failures. ↑ Table 5. Security Characteristics of NLB and Hardware Load Balancer Option Characteristics Level NLB NLB does not affect security if properly implemented. → Hardware load balancer Hardware load balancers can increase security of the infrastructure due to rudimentary packet screening features. ↑
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