Focusing on the right hardware resources

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Focusing on the right hardware resources

The goal in tuning Network Load Balancing and the applications it load balances is to determine which hardware resource will experience the greatest demand, and then to adjust the configuration to relieve that demand and maximize total throughput.

For example, if the primary role of the cluster is to provide high availability of file and print services, high disk use will be incurred due to the large number of files being opened and closed. File and print services also cause a heavy load on network adapters because of the large amount of data that is being transferred. It is important to make sure that your network adapter and cluster subnet can handle the load. In this scenario, RAM typically does not carry a heavy load (although memory usage can be heavy if a large amount of RAM is allocated to a file system cache). Processor use is also typically low in this environment. In such cases, memory and processor use usually do not need the optimizing that other components need.

In contrast, a server-application environment (such as e-commerce sites running COM+ applications) is much more processor and RAM intensive than a typical file or print server environment because much more processing is taking place at the server. In these cases, it is best to use high-end multiprocessor computers. The disk and network loads tend to be used less because the amount of data being sent is smaller. Network Load Balancing uses few system resources either for host-to-host communication or for the operation of the cluster itself.