How to Creating User From Active Directory user and computers

Document Versioning in SharePoint 2010

SharePoint allows you to enable (by default it's disabled) versioning on lists and libraries. Once enabled, SharePoint will maintain multiple versions of the document or list which gets incremented on each change iteration. There are three different versioning settings:

• No versioning - This is the default setting in which the current version overwrites the older version. There are no previous versions stored. This setting is not recommended especially if your document library contains critical or important documents.
• Create major versions - Also called simple versioning, in this setting the document versions will be numbered with whole numbers, called major versions, i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.
• Create major and minor (or draft) versions - In this setting document versions will be numbered with whole numbers (1, 2, 3, 4 etc.) as well as numbers with decimals (.1, .2, .3, .4 etc.). The whole number is called the major version (indicates final copy) and the numbers with a decimal are called minor versions (indicates work is still in progress). You use this setting if your document goes through several iterations/drafts/reviews (minor versions) and you want only the final copy (major version) to be published to a broader audience.

Please note for a list or list items, the only option available for versioning is creating major versions, no minor versions are created.

Once versioning is enabled SharePoint automatically and transparently creates the next version of the document whenever a user updates a document in the library. These are some of the different scenarios when SharePoint will create a new version for your document or list item:

• When a new document or list item is created or uploaded into SharePoint, version 1 is created if the optionCreate major versions option is enabled or version 0.1 is created when Create major and minor (or draft) versions is enabled (not applicable for list items) and when you publish it then next higher major version is created.
• When you upload a document with the same name as an already existing document in the library and check theAdd as a new version to existing files check box, the existing file becomes an older version and the new uploaded document will have next higher version number.
• When any properties (metadata fields) of the document or list item is changed.
• When you Check-in a document that was previously Checked-out.
• When you open a document in the associated application, edit and save it for the first time. On subsequent changes no new versions will be created as long as you don't close the application and re-open it.
• When you restore the old version of the document.

Please note, although the demonstration in this tip has been shown in SharePoint 2010, the versioning feature has been part of previous SharePoint versions as well.

Example

Select the library for which you want to enable versioning in the Quick Launch on the left side (or by going to All Site Content if the library is not visible in Quick Launch), under the Library Tools ribbon, select the Library tab. You will notice the Library Settings icon on the right side of the ribbon (shown below), Click on it.

In the Document Library Settings page, under General Settings click on the Versioning settings hyperlink as shown below:

On the Versioning Settings page you will see four sections. The first section, Content Approval, lets you define a protocol to make versions available to everyone with the required permission only after that version has been approvedby the authorized person or else changes will remain in draft versions.

The second section, Document Version History, is the place where you enable versioning for the library. By default the No versioning radio button is selected. Change it to either Create major versions or Create major and minor (draft) versions. Optionally you can define maximum number of major or minor versions that will be retained by SharePoint. If it crosses the defined limits SharePoint removes the oldest/first (lowest number) version and this way it maintains the maximum versions.

The third section, Draft Item Security, allows you to define who all will be able to see the draft/minor versions of the document, i.e. only users with read only access or only users with edit permissions or only by the author and persons who are authorized to approve the versions (people with Design or Full Control permissions).

The last section, Require Check-out, allows you to enforce Check-out to edit documents of the library by the users.

When enabling versions for a list, you will notice a slightly different second section on the List Settings page as you can see below. As I said before only major versions are created for list items and this is exactly what you see here. Other sections remain same as discussed above for document library:

Once versioning is enabled, you can click on any document (tiny down arrow icon) and see the context menu as shown below. To review version history for that particular document, click onthe  Version History menu and you will see one screen with all the versions of that document as below.

You can click on any particular version of the document to either read it, delete it and revert to your current version with the selected older version. If you restore an old version, you will be prompted to confirm the replacement and if you select OK, the older version will be restored with a new version and the previously current version will become an old version.

If you delete the original document, all the associated versions will also be dropped with it, though you have the option to delete a particular version as shown above. All those deleted versions move to the Recycle Bin as you see below (I deleted some of the versions of the document), if required you can restore back the document versions or delete it from Recycle bin permanently.

Comparing multiple versions

MS-Office applications have integration with SharePoint and hence these applications allow you to Check-out a document, compare two versions etc. As you can see in the image below, it shows the list of versions of the opened document along with several other options.

These applications allow you to compare the versions of the document that could be either comparing two major versions or last two any versions.

In the screen below, you can see the comparison result of versions of the document. On the right top corner you can see the original document. On the right bottom you can see the changed document and on the left side you can see summary of the changes.

Enabling the Create major and minor (draft) versions option gives you slightly different options. As minor versions get created before a document gets published (at that time major version is created), you specify who all will be able to see these minor versions.

When you have a look into the version history of the document, when the library has been enabled for Create major and minor (draft) versions you will notice a slightly different view...

A document needs to be published to create a major version and make it ready for a wider audience. To do that click on the document and then click on the Publish a Major Version menu as shown below. This will create a new major version of the document.

While publishing  a document (creating a major version), you can specify the comments about the changes to the version as shown below that helps in understanding the version when having a look into version history and hence help in tracking.

If you have enabled Content Approval for your document library, you will notice two new menu options (Cancel Approval and Approve/Reject) as shown below. You can also see that the Approval Status for the document is Pending as it has not been approved yet:

While approving or rejecting the version, you can specify your review comments in the comment section. (Shown below.)

Notes

• For a SharePoint list the only option available for versioning is to "Create major versions".
• You need Design or Full Control permission in order to enable versioning.
• To disable versioning for a library or list, go to the Library or List Settings and select No Versioning and click OK. This will remove all previous versions and prevent future versioning.

Recovering Deleted Sites and Site Collections

First we'll look at a deleted site. This one is actually nice and simple. You go to the Site Collection Recycle bin, make sure you select "Deleted from end user recycle bin" in the quick launch (see screen shot below), select the deleted site and click restore. It really is that simple!

Just a note you do need to be a site collection administrator in order to be able to access this recycle bin.

Secondly we'll look at a deleted site collection. For this process you need to be a farm administrator as the process is performed from the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell on the SharePoint Servers. There are three PowerShell commands to take note of for this operation. They are:

Get-SPDeletedSite – this command gets a list of all deleted Site Collections in your farm.

Restore-SPDeletedSite – this command is used to restore a deleted Site Collection within your farm

Remove-SPDeletedSite – this command is used to actually clear out any deleted Site Collection you no longer want to keep (think "Empty Recycle Bin").

Here are some simple examples of these commands being run.

Restore-SPDeletedSite

Remove-SPDeletedSite

Install and Configure NLB (WLBS) on Windows Server 2008

In this article I will load balance 2 servers and take you through the process step-by-step. Load Balancing takes 2 or more servers and lets them share one IP address so both servers can serve client requests. At the end of this article you should be able to configure NLB.

Gathering Information

Log onto both of the servers and run IPCONFIG /ALL from the command prompt. We need the name, domain and IP address of each server that will be in the NLB Cluster. We will also need to make up an additional name for the cluster in this example we will use SERVER-LB for the virtual cluster name.

The 2 servers we will be Load Balancing are PL2008-01 and PL2008-02. The virtual cluster name will be PL2008-V. So if this was a web server users would go to http://PL2008-V, depending how we configure NLB either PL2008-01, PL2008-02 or both servers will service the web request.

SERVER NAME	IP ADDRESS	TYPE
PL2008-01.pintolake.net	192.168.1.180	Server 1
PL2008-02.pintolake.net	192.168.1.181	Server 2
PL2008-V.pintolake.net	192.168.1.182	Virtual cluster name and IP address of Servers 1/2

 

In this example both servers only have one network card. If you have multiple network cards you will still be able to load balance the 2 servers. You need to configure one NIC per server for NLB, both NIC’s should be on the same VLAN and be they should able to contact each other.

PL2008-01

PL2008-02

Installation of NLB feature on all NLB nodes

This should be done on ALL NODES in the NLB Cluster. In this case we are performing this installation on PL2008-01 and PL2008-02.

Open Server Manager, you can open this several different ways in Windows Server 2008. Probably the quickest way to open Server Manager is to right click "My Computer" and choose "Manage", another way is open "Control Panel" go to "Program and Features" and select "Turn Windows features on or off". A third way to open it is "Server Manager" option under Administrative Tools.

• Select "Features" from the Server Manager menu on the left
• Press "Add Features"

• Select the checkbox next to "Network Load Balancing"
• Press "Next"

• Press "Install"

Installation will proceed to install the necessary components

Installation has successes. It is highly recommended that you repeat this process on all nodes in the NLB cluster at this point before continuing with configuration

• Press "Close"

NOTE: Network Load Balancing may also be installed from a command prompt with elevated privileges (right click on the command prompt in the Start menu and select Run as administrator) by running theservermanagercmd -install nlb command. For example: C:\Windows\system32>servermanagercmd -install nlb ...... Start Installation... [Installation] Succeeded: [Network Load Balancing]. <100/100> Success: Installation succeeded.

 

Configuring NLB on NODE 1 (PL2008-01)

Network Load Balanced clusters are built using the Network Load Balancing Manager which you can start from Start -> All Programs -> Administrative Tools menu or from a command prompt by executing nlbmgr.

• Under the Cluster Menu option select "New"

• Enter the first node in the cluster which is PL2008-01
• Press "Connect"

You will have the option to choose which network adapter you want to use, the NIC should be on the same subnet as the other servers in the NLB cluster

• Press "Next"

• Enter the Priority ID as, 1 (each node in the NLB cluster should have a UNIQUE ID)
• Make sure the correct adapter was selected under "Dedicated IP Address"
• Select "Started" for the "Initial host state" (this tells NLB whether you want this node to participate in the cluster at startup)
• Press "Next"

• Press "Add"
• Enter the Cluster IP and Subnet mask
• Press "OK"

You can add multiple IP Addresses for the cluster, enter as many as you want.

• Make sure the "Cluster IP addresses" are correct
• Press "Next"

• Select the IP Address for this cluster
• Enter the NLB address "PL2008-V.pintolake.net"
• Enter "Unicast" as the "Cluster operation mode"
• Press "Next"

Unicast vs Multicast Unicast/Multicast is the way the MAC address for the Virtual IP is presented to the routers. In my experience I have almost always used Multicast, which if you use you should enter a persistent ARP entry on all upstream switches or you will not be able to ping the servers remotely. In the unicast method: The cluster adapters for all cluster hosts are assigned the same unicast MAC address. The outgoing MAC address for each packet is modified, based on the cluster host’s priority setting, to prevent upstream switches from discovering that all cluster hosts have the same MAC address. In the multicast method: The cluster adapter for each cluster host retains the original hardware unicast MAC address (as specified by the hardware manufacture of the network adapter). The cluster adapters for all cluster hosts are assigned a multicast MAC address. The multicast MAC is derived from the cluster’s IP address. Communication between cluster hosts is not affected, because each cluster host retains a unique MAC address. Selecting the Unicast or Multicast Method of Distributing Incoming Requestshttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc782694.aspx

I am leaving all the default for the port rules; by default its set to all ports with Single affinity, which is sticky. For more information on Port Rules, see my Note below.

• Press "Finish"

NOTE: Add/Edit Port Rule Settings For most scenarios I would keep the default settings. The most important setting is probably the filtering mode. "Single" works well for most web application, it maintains a users session on one server so if the user server requests go to PL2008-01, PL2008-02 will continue to serve that request for the duration of the session. None You want to ensure even load balancing among cluster hosts Client traffic is stateless (for example, HTTP traffic). Single You want to ensure that requests from a specific client (IP address) are sent to the same cluster host. Client state is maintained across TCP connections (for example, HTTPS traffic). Class C Client requests from a Class C IP address range (instead of a single IP address) are sent to the same cluster host. Clients use multiple proxy servers to access the cluster, and they appear to have multiple IP addresses within the same Class C IP address range. Client state is maintained across TCP connections (for example, HTTPS traffic). For more information on this please see this TechNet article: Specifying the Affinity and Load-Balancing Behavior of the Custom Port Rule http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc759039.aspx

You should see a couple of things in the NLB Manager, this will let us know that this node successfully converged on our new PL2008-V.pintolake.net NLB Cluster

• Make sure the node’s status changes to "Converged"
• Make sure you see a "succeeded" message in the log window

Configuring NLB for NODE 2 (PL2008-02)

We will configure PL2008-02 from PL2008-01. If we wanted to configure this from PL2008-02 then we would need to connect to the PL2008-V cluster first then add the host to the cluster.

• Right click the cluster name "PL2008-V.pintolake.net" and select "Add Host to Cluster"

• Enter PL2008-02 and press "Connect"

A list of Network adapters will show up

• Select the network adapter you want to use for Load Balancing
• Press "Next"

This step is very important; each node in the NLB cluster should have a unique identifier. This identifier is used to identify the node in the cluster.

• Enter the Priority ID as, 2 (each node in the NLB cluster should have a UNIQUE ID)
• Make sure the correct adapter was selected under "Dedicated IP Address"
• Select "Started" for the "Initial host state" (this tells NLB whether you want this node to participate in the cluster at startup)
• Press "Next"

• Press "Finish"

You should see a couple of things in the NLB Manager, this will let us know that both nodes successfully converged on our new PL2008-V.pintolake.net NLB Cluster

• Make sure that both node’s status changes to "Converged"
• Make sure each node has a unique "host priority" ID
• Make sure each node is "started" under "initial host state"
• Make sure you see a "succeeded" message in the log window for the second node

A closer look at the configuration information for this NLB cluster

Testing

• Go to the command prompt and type "wlbs query", as you can see HOST 1 and HOST 2 converged successfully on the cluster. This means things are working well.
• Ping each server locally and remotely
• Ping the virtual IP locally and remotely – you should do this three times from each location. If you cannot ping remotely you may need to add a static ARP entry in your switches and/or routers where the host machines reside
  • 1 – Both nodes up
  • 2 – Node 1 down
  • 3 – Node 2 down

NLB Documentation (from Windows Help)

Availability, scalability, and clustering technologies

Windows Server 2008 provides two clustering technologies: failover clusters and Network Load Balancing (NLB). Failover clusters primarily provide high availability; Network Load Balancing provides scalability and at the same time helps increase availability of Web-based services.

Your choice of cluster technologies (failover clusters or Network Load Balancing) depends primarily on whether the applications you run have long-running in-memory state:

Failover clusters are designed for applications that have long-running in-memory state, or that have large, frequently updated data states. These are called stateful applications, and they include database applications and messaging applications. Typical uses for failover clusters include file servers, print servers, database servers, and messaging servers.

Network Load Balancing is intended for applications that do not have long-running in-memory state. These are called stateless applications. A stateless application treats each client request as an independent operation, and therefore it can load-balance each request independently. Stateless applications often have read-only data or data that changes infrequently. Front-end Web servers, virtual private networks (VPNs), File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers, and firewall and proxy servers typically use Network Load Balancing. Network Load Balancing clusters can also support other TCP- or UDP-based services and applications.

Network Load Balancing overview

The Network Load Balancing (NLB) service enhances the availability and scalability of Internet server applications such as those used on Web, FTP, firewall, proxy, virtual private network (VPN), and other mission-critical servers.

What are NLB clusters?

A single computer running Windows can provide a limited level of server reliability and scalable performance. However, by combining the resources of two or more computers running one of the products in Windows Server 2008 into a single virtual cluster, NLB can deliver the reliability and performance that Web servers and other mission-critical servers need.

Each host runs a separate copy of the desired server applications (such as applications for Web, FTP, and Telnet servers). NLB distributes incoming client requests across the hosts in the cluster. The load weight to be handled by each host can be configured as necessary. You can also add hosts dynamically to the cluster to handle increased load. In addition, NLB can direct all traffic to a designated single host, which is called the default host.

NLB allows all of the computers in the cluster to be addressed by the same set of cluster IP addresses, and it maintains a set of unique, dedicated IP addresses for each host. For load-balanced applications, when a host fails or goes offline, the load is automatically redistributed among the computers that are still operating. When a computer fails or goes offline unexpectedly, active connections to the failed or offline server are lost. However, if you bring a host down intentionally, you can use the drainstop command to service all active connections prior to bringing the computer offline. In any case, when it is ready, the offline computer can transparently rejoin the cluster and regain its share of the workload, which allows the other computers in the cluster to handle less traffic.

Hardware and software considerations for NLB clusters

• NLB is installed as a standard Windows networking driver component.
• NLB requires no hardware changes to enable and run.
• NLB Manager enables you to create new NLB clusters and to configure and manage clusters and all of the cluster’s hosts from a single remote or local computer.
• NLB lets clients access the cluster by using a single, logical Internet name and virtual IP address—known as the cluster IP address (it retains individual names for each computer). NLB allows multiple virtual IP addresses for multihomed servers.

Note:

In the case of virtual clusters, the servers do not need to be multihomed to have multiple virtual IP addresses.

NLB can be bound to multiple network adapters, which allows you to configure multiple independent clusters on each host. Support for multiple network adapters is different from virtual clusters in that virtual clusters allow you to configure multiple clusters on a single network adapter.

Installing the NLB feature

To use Network Load Balancing (NLB), a computer must have only TCP/IP on the adapter on which NLB is installed. Do not add any other protocols (for example, IPX) to this adapter. NLB can load balance any application or service that uses TCP/IP as its network protocol and is associated with a specific Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) port.

To install and configure NLB, you must use an account that is listed in the Administrators group on each host. If you are not using an account in the Administrators group as you install and configure each host, you will be prompted to provide the logon credentials for such an account. To set up an account that NLB Manager will use by default: in NLB Manager, expand the Options menu, and then click Credentials. We recommend that this account not be used for any other purpose.

You can use Initial Configuration Tasks or Server Manager to install NLB. To install NLB, in the list of tasks, click Add features and in the list of features in the wizard, click Network Load Balancing.

Managing NLB

Server roles and features are managed by using Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-ins. To open the Network Load Balancing Manager snap-in, click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Network Load Balancing Manager. You can also open Network Load Balancing Manager by typing Nlbmgr at a command prompt.

Additional references for NLB

To learn more about NLB, you can view the Help on your server. To do this, open Network Load Balancing Manager as described in the previous section and press F1.

For deployment information for NLB, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=87253

For instructions on how to configure NLB with Terminal Services, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=80406

For operations information for NLB, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=87254

For troubleshooting information for NLB, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=87255

Install and Configure NLB (WLBS) on Windows Server 2008

In this article I will load balance 2 servers and take you through the process step-by-step. Load Balancing takes 2 or more servers and lets them share one IP address so both servers can serve client requests. At the end of this article you should be able to configure NLB.

Gathering Information

Log onto both of the servers and run IPCONFIG /ALL from the command prompt. We need the name, domain and IP address of each server that will be in the NLB Cluster. We will also need to make up an additional name for the cluster in this example we will use SERVER-LB for the virtual cluster name.

The 2 servers we will be Load Balancing are PL2008-01 and PL2008-02. The virtual cluster name will be PL2008-V. So if this was a web server users would go to http://PL2008-V, depending how we configure NLB either PL2008-01, PL2008-02 or both servers will service the web request.

SERVER NAME	IP ADDRESS	TYPE
PL2008-01.pintolake.net	192.168.1.180	Server 1
PL2008-02.pintolake.net	192.168.1.181	Server 2
PL2008-V.pintolake.net	192.168.1.182	Virtual cluster name and IP address of Servers 1/2

 

In this example both servers only have one network card. If you have multiple network cards you will still be able to load balance the 2 servers. You need to configure one NIC per server for NLB, both NIC’s should be on the same VLAN and be they should able to contact each other.

PL2008-01

PL2008-02

Installation of NLB feature on all NLB nodes

This should be done on ALL NODES in the NLB Cluster. In this case we are performing this installation on PL2008-01 and PL2008-02.

Open Server Manager, you can open this several different ways in Windows Server 2008. Probably the quickest way to open Server Manager is to right click "My Computer" and choose "Manage", another way is open "Control Panel" go to "Program and Features" and select "Turn Windows features on or off". A third way to open it is "Server Manager" option under Administrative Tools.

• Select "Features" from the Server Manager menu on the left
• Press "Add Features"

• Select the checkbox next to "Network Load Balancing"
• Press "Next"

• Press "Install"

Installation will proceed to install the necessary components

Installation has successes. It is highly recommended that you repeat this process on all nodes in the NLB cluster at this point before continuing with configuration

• Press "Close"

NOTE: Network Load Balancing may also be installed from a command prompt with elevated privileges (right click on the command prompt in the Start menu and select Run as administrator) by running theservermanagercmd -install nlb command. For example: C:\Windows\system32>servermanagercmd -install nlb ...... Start Installation... [Installation] Succeeded: [Network Load Balancing]. <100/100> Success: Installation succeeded.

 

Configuring NLB on NODE 1 (PL2008-01)

Network Load Balanced clusters are built using the Network Load Balancing Manager which you can start from Start -> All Programs -> Administrative Tools menu or from a command prompt by executing nlbmgr.

• Under the Cluster Menu option select "New"

• Enter the first node in the cluster which is PL2008-01
• Press "Connect"

You will have the option to choose which network adapter you want to use, the NIC should be on the same subnet as the other servers in the NLB cluster

• Press "Next"

• Enter the Priority ID as, 1 (each node in the NLB cluster should have a UNIQUE ID)
• Make sure the correct adapter was selected under "Dedicated IP Address"
• Select "Started" for the "Initial host state" (this tells NLB whether you want this node to participate in the cluster at startup)
• Press "Next"

• Press "Add"
• Enter the Cluster IP and Subnet mask
• Press "OK"

You can add multiple IP Addresses for the cluster, enter as many as you want.

• Make sure the "Cluster IP addresses" are correct
• Press "Next"

• Select the IP Address for this cluster
• Enter the NLB address "PL2008-V.pintolake.net"
• Enter "Unicast" as the "Cluster operation mode"
• Press "Next"

Unicast vs Multicast Unicast/Multicast is the way the MAC address for the Virtual IP is presented to the routers. In my experience I have almost always used Multicast, which if you use you should enter a persistent ARP entry on all upstream switches or you will not be able to ping the servers remotely. In the unicast method: The cluster adapters for all cluster hosts are assigned the same unicast MAC address. The outgoing MAC address for each packet is modified, based on the cluster host’s priority setting, to prevent upstream switches from discovering that all cluster hosts have the same MAC address. In the multicast method: The cluster adapter for each cluster host retains the original hardware unicast MAC address (as specified by the hardware manufacture of the network adapter). The cluster adapters for all cluster hosts are assigned a multicast MAC address. The multicast MAC is derived from the cluster’s IP address. Communication between cluster hosts is not affected, because each cluster host retains a unique MAC address. Selecting the Unicast or Multicast Method of Distributing Incoming Requestshttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc782694.aspx

I am leaving all the default for the port rules; by default its set to all ports with Single affinity, which is sticky. For more information on Port Rules, see my Note below.

• Press "Finish"

NOTE: Add/Edit Port Rule Settings For most scenarios I would keep the default settings. The most important setting is probably the filtering mode. "Single" works well for most web application, it maintains a users session on one server so if the user server requests go to PL2008-01, PL2008-02 will continue to serve that request for the duration of the session. None You want to ensure even load balancing among cluster hosts Client traffic is stateless (for example, HTTP traffic). Single You want to ensure that requests from a specific client (IP address) are sent to the same cluster host. Client state is maintained across TCP connections (for example, HTTPS traffic). Class C Client requests from a Class C IP address range (instead of a single IP address) are sent to the same cluster host. Clients use multiple proxy servers to access the cluster, and they appear to have multiple IP addresses within the same Class C IP address range. Client state is maintained across TCP connections (for example, HTTPS traffic). For more information on this please see this TechNet article: Specifying the Affinity and Load-Balancing Behavior of the Custom Port Rule http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc759039.aspx

You should see a couple of things in the NLB Manager, this will let us know that this node successfully converged on our new PL2008-V.pintolake.net NLB Cluster

• Make sure the node’s status changes to "Converged"
• Make sure you see a "succeeded" message in the log window

Configuring NLB for NODE 2 (PL2008-02)

We will configure PL2008-02 from PL2008-01. If we wanted to configure this from PL2008-02 then we would need to connect to the PL2008-V cluster first then add the host to the cluster.

• Right click the cluster name "PL2008-V.pintolake.net" and select "Add Host to Cluster"

• Enter PL2008-02 and press "Connect"

A list of Network adapters will show up

• Select the network adapter you want to use for Load Balancing
• Press "Next"

This step is very important; each node in the NLB cluster should have a unique identifier. This identifier is used to identify the node in the cluster.

• Enter the Priority ID as, 2 (each node in the NLB cluster should have a UNIQUE ID)
• Make sure the correct adapter was selected under "Dedicated IP Address"
• Select "Started" for the "Initial host state" (this tells NLB whether you want this node to participate in the cluster at startup)
• Press "Next"

• Press "Finish"

You should see a couple of things in the NLB Manager, this will let us know that both nodes successfully converged on our new PL2008-V.pintolake.net NLB Cluster

• Make sure that both node’s status changes to "Converged"
• Make sure each node has a unique "host priority" ID
• Make sure each node is "started" under "initial host state"
• Make sure you see a "succeeded" message in the log window for the second node

A closer look at the configuration information for this NLB cluster

Testing

• Go to the command prompt and type "wlbs query", as you can see HOST 1 and HOST 2 converged successfully on the cluster. This means things are working well.
• Ping each server locally and remotely
• Ping the virtual IP locally and remotely – you should do this three times from each location. If you cannot ping remotely you may need to add a static ARP entry in your switches and/or routers where the host machines reside
  • 1 – Both nodes up
  • 2 – Node 1 down
  • 3 – Node 2 down

NLB Documentation (from Windows Help)

Availability, scalability, and clustering technologies

Windows Server 2008 provides two clustering technologies: failover clusters and Network Load Balancing (NLB). Failover clusters primarily provide high availability; Network Load Balancing provides scalability and at the same time helps increase availability of Web-based services.

Your choice of cluster technologies (failover clusters or Network Load Balancing) depends primarily on whether the applications you run have long-running in-memory state:

Failover clusters are designed for applications that have long-running in-memory state, or that have large, frequently updated data states. These are called stateful applications, and they include database applications and messaging applications. Typical uses for failover clusters include file servers, print servers, database servers, and messaging servers.

Network Load Balancing is intended for applications that do not have long-running in-memory state. These are called stateless applications. A stateless application treats each client request as an independent operation, and therefore it can load-balance each request independently. Stateless applications often have read-only data or data that changes infrequently. Front-end Web servers, virtual private networks (VPNs), File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers, and firewall and proxy servers typically use Network Load Balancing. Network Load Balancing clusters can also support other TCP- or UDP-based services and applications.

Network Load Balancing overview

The Network Load Balancing (NLB) service enhances the availability and scalability of Internet server applications such as those used on Web, FTP, firewall, proxy, virtual private network (VPN), and other mission-critical servers.

What are NLB clusters?

A single computer running Windows can provide a limited level of server reliability and scalable performance. However, by combining the resources of two or more computers running one of the products in Windows Server 2008 into a single virtual cluster, NLB can deliver the reliability and performance that Web servers and other mission-critical servers need.

Each host runs a separate copy of the desired server applications (such as applications for Web, FTP, and Telnet servers). NLB distributes incoming client requests across the hosts in the cluster. The load weight to be handled by each host can be configured as necessary. You can also add hosts dynamically to the cluster to handle increased load. In addition, NLB can direct all traffic to a designated single host, which is called the default host.

NLB allows all of the computers in the cluster to be addressed by the same set of cluster IP addresses, and it maintains a set of unique, dedicated IP addresses for each host. For load-balanced applications, when a host fails or goes offline, the load is automatically redistributed among the computers that are still operating. When a computer fails or goes offline unexpectedly, active connections to the failed or offline server are lost. However, if you bring a host down intentionally, you can use the drainstop command to service all active connections prior to bringing the computer offline. In any case, when it is ready, the offline computer can transparently rejoin the cluster and regain its share of the workload, which allows the other computers in the cluster to handle less traffic.

Hardware and software considerations for NLB clusters

• NLB is installed as a standard Windows networking driver component.
• NLB requires no hardware changes to enable and run.
• NLB Manager enables you to create new NLB clusters and to configure and manage clusters and all of the cluster’s hosts from a single remote or local computer.
• NLB lets clients access the cluster by using a single, logical Internet name and virtual IP address—known as the cluster IP address (it retains individual names for each computer). NLB allows multiple virtual IP addresses for multihomed servers.

Note:

In the case of virtual clusters, the servers do not need to be multihomed to have multiple virtual IP addresses.

NLB can be bound to multiple network adapters, which allows you to configure multiple independent clusters on each host. Support for multiple network adapters is different from virtual clusters in that virtual clusters allow you to configure multiple clusters on a single network adapter.

Installing the NLB feature

To use Network Load Balancing (NLB), a computer must have only TCP/IP on the adapter on which NLB is installed. Do not add any other protocols (for example, IPX) to this adapter. NLB can load balance any application or service that uses TCP/IP as its network protocol and is associated with a specific Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) port.

To install and configure NLB, you must use an account that is listed in the Administrators group on each host. If you are not using an account in the Administrators group as you install and configure each host, you will be prompted to provide the logon credentials for such an account. To set up an account that NLB Manager will use by default: in NLB Manager, expand the Options menu, and then click Credentials. We recommend that this account not be used for any other purpose.

You can use Initial Configuration Tasks or Server Manager to install NLB. To install NLB, in the list of tasks, click Add features and in the list of features in the wizard, click Network Load Balancing.

Managing NLB

Server roles and features are managed by using Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-ins. To open the Network Load Balancing Manager snap-in, click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Network Load Balancing Manager. You can also open Network Load Balancing Manager by typing Nlbmgr at a command prompt.

Additional references for NLB

To learn more about NLB, you can view the Help on your server. To do this, open Network Load Balancing Manager as described in the previous section and press F1.

For deployment information for NLB, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=87253

For instructions on how to configure NLB with Terminal Services, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=80406

For operations information for NLB, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=87254

For troubleshooting information for NLB, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=87255