Sharepoint 2010 Load Balance Configuration

Happy new year guys. Finally I got out some time to post this. I wanted to post this exercise in December itself. Anyways it is better to be late than never.

                   Sharepoint has single server installations and multiple server installations. In medium or large farms there are 3 tiers in Sharepoint Farm.

Database Server

Application Server and

Web Front End Server (WFE)

As the number of users for Sharepoint increase we should add more WFE servers to the farm as the user requests are handled by the WFE server. Multiple WFE servers in the farm help to distribute the load. In order to achieve this we would have to load balance the WFE servers. The below post would be a detailed configuration on how to do this. 

At a higher level we would be doing the following steps as a part of this exercise

I) Adding a WFE server to the Sharepoint Farm.

II) Enable the Network Load Balancing feature and configuring the cluster

III) DNS entry for the cluster

I) Adding a WFE server to the Sharepoint Farm.

We are beginning this exercise assuming that one WFE is already existing in the farm.

1) I am installing Sharepoint in another WFE and connecting it to the existing farm. Click Next.

2) Enter the database server (Click Retrieve Database Names) and the database name

3) Enter the passphrase and click Next.

4) Click the Advanced Settings and choose Use this machine to host the web site. Click OK.

5) Click Finish

II) Enable the Network Load Balancing feature and configuring the cluster

1) Now we will proceed with Network Load Balancing installation in the two WFE (web front end) SharePoint servers.

1) Now we will proceed with Network Load Balancing installation in the two WFE (web front end) SharePoint servers.

2) We will configure NLB and create a cluster. Start -> Administrative Tools -> Network Load Balancing Manager

3) Right-click Network Balancing and select New Cluster.

4) Connect to one host and add the cluster IP address.

5) Select Multicast. By default this is Unicast.

6) We can define the port rule, but I left it as default.

7) Add the second WFE server to the cluster.

8) Enter the second host name that needs to be part of the new cluster.

9) Set the priority to be 2

10) Click Next,and complete the configuration.    

                                             

III) DNS entry for the cluster

1) Create an entry in DNS for the cluster.

                                 

2) Set the binding for the site.

3) Modify Alternate Access Mapping for the default site collection from http://xxxxxwfe1 to http://cluster.

The configurations has completed, We can access our site with URL http://cluster.









Reference:

http://www.sharepointpitstop.com/2013/01/sharepoint-load-balance-configuration.html

SharePoint 2010 load balancing

Excellent step by step on Loadbalancing in Sharepoint 2010


Hi , Today I have configure load balancing windows server for install SharePoint 2010. I think this article helpful your guide install SharePoint2010.
In my Labs
I have two server setup for WFE SharePoint 2010 and I must configure sharepoint 2010 load balancing in my labs.
All farm SharePoint 2010 I use windows server 2008 R2.
Information before setup SharePoint 2010 load balancing.

Server Name	IP Address	Type
CHEMRYSPWFE01.Mydomain.com	172.28.1.77	Web Front End Server 1
CHEMRYSPWFE02.Mydomain.com	172.28.1.78	Web Front End Server 2
SCGCHEMICALS.Mydomain.com	172.28.1.80	Web Load Balance

Other server in farm.
App01.mydomain.com
SQL.mydomain.com
On server 
CHEMRYSPWFE01.Mydomain.com > I have one card lan.
CHEMRYSPWFE01.Mydomain.com > I have one card lan.

How to configure SharePoint 2010 load balancing.

1. Join Server WFE01 / WFE02 to your domain , assign IP address.
2. On CHEMRYSPWFE01 and CHEMRYSPWFE02
Add feature Network load balancing.





3.  Go to DNS server ,
Add host A > assign IP address and you name cluster name
Example : SCGCHEMICALS.Mydomain.com  : 172.28.1.80

4.  On CHEMRYSPWFE01
Go to menu > Network load balancing Manager

In console > Click Right Network load balancing > New Cluster






 Add your name HOST WFE01 and Click Connect.



t will automatic show IP address your WFE01
HOST Parameters






Select Priority HOST 1
Notes :
WFE01 I will set  Priority HOST  =1
WFE02 I will set  Priority HOST  =2
Initial host state Choose Started and check in Retail suspended state after computer restarts.

Configure Cluster IP Address




Add > Assign your IP address (IP cluster , In my lab 172.28.1.80)




Cluster Parameters



Ip address : IP cluster
Full internet mame : Name cluster (FQDN) , Your name Create in step3 DNS
Example : SCGCHEMICALS.Mydomain.com
Cluster operation mode.
Next > Finish.


 



5. On CHEMRYSPWFE02
Go to menu > Network load balancing Manager
In console > Click Right your name cluster  >  Add host to cluster.



Add your name HOST WFE02 and Click Connect.

 


It will automatic show IP address your WFE02.
Select Priority HOST 2

 



Notes :
WFE01 I will set  Priority HOST  =1
WFE02 I will set  Priority HOST  =2
Initial host state Choose Started and check in Retail suspended state after computer restarts.
Finish
6.  Done for configure windows server load balancing for SharePoint 2010.
HOST WFE01 and WFE02 Status is must Converged.





7.  Next step You have install SQL Server for database.
How to install SQL Server 2008 Cluster .
8. Install SharePoint server 2010 in Server app01 create central admin.
How to install SharePoint 2010.
9. WFE01 and WFE02 install sharePoint and join to farm.
10. Create name web application on name cluster name.
11. Complete.

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Reference:

http://www.windowsclever.com/sharepoint/sharepoint-2010-load-balancing.html

SharePoint 2010 Application server Load Balancer

Question:

I've been tasked with setting up a 3-tier SharePoint farm.

1. Two load balanced webservers
2. Two applications servers
3. A SQL server

Everything is all set up and working with load balancing etc. etc.

My question is what do I do with the application servers?

• Do I load balance the two application servers?
• Do I cluster them?
• Do I run certain services on each server?
• Do I have the same services running on each server and SharePoint automatically chooses a server?

I'm not quite sure why we have two application servers. Currently I just have the same services running on each app server.

Answers: 

1. What you do with the application servers largely depends on what services you are running in the    farm and how heavy they are utilized (i.e. it depends on your requirements). SharePoint 2010 will handle it's own internal load balancing with the service applications, so no need to set those up behind  a load balancer. It just depends which application servers you have activated to run those services.

2. You do want to load balance the web front ends, but you do not want to load balance or cluster the Application Servers. The App servers should be where you run your Service Applications. These Service Applications can be started on more than one server. When they are started automatically on more than one server they are load balanced between the 2 app servers. If one goes down the server gets marked down and the other server handles the load by itself. When the other server comes back up it will eventually get marked as active again and load balancing will resume. I agree the query role should be located on the WFE. However in your situation I would run the Indexing Service on both App servers along with almost all of the other services so you get performance and redundancy.

3. SharePoint servers that hold roles such as search are typically labeled as application servers. These servers do not require load-balancing technology, since SharePoint provides load-balancing internally for service applications. In reality, servers labeled as either WFE servers or application servers may hold many different roles. For example, it is common for the search query role to be configured on WFE servers.
Reference:

http://www.microsofttechnology.net/2013/04/sharepoint-2010-application-server-load.html

How to: Setting up NLB in SharePoint 2010 farm

Nice Artcile by Aaroh explained step by step

In my previous blog post, I have described about how to set up a two tier SharePoint 2010 farm by providing an additional web front end. Spence Harbar has written an extremely informative article about SharePoint's high availability, network load balancing (NLB) & recommended to have Central Administration on more than one server in the farm. 

The main purpose of NLB is to provide high availability to the SharePoint 2010 farms so that the web front load is distributed. I wanted to learn how the NLB feature of Windows Server 2008 R2 functions and hence this post. As a I have limited knowledge of Windows NLB feature, I read MSDN documentation and watched a couple of screen casts on YouTube. One of the YouTube videos had been very useful. I watched the complete video and PowerPoint presentation was indeed good resource for me. These are the excerpts of his presentation.

--------------------------------------------------------
Basics of NLB
 
What is load balancing?

System that increases the scalability & high availability of the servers that provide access to data.  

Other NLB methods:

·         >> A virtual IP address (VIA) is used to distribute requites between multiple severs

·         >> Not suitable for all applications

      

      What is Windows NLB?

·         >> Is a fully distributed software solution for load balancing

 >>Is included with all versions of Windows Server 2008  

 Requirements  for Windows NLB:

·        >>  At least one network adapter for load balancing

·         >>Only TCP/IP on the NLB adapter

·         >> All NLB nodes on the same subnet

    What are port rules?

Specify how requests to a certain IP address & port range are handled.
Port rules define:
     >> Filtering mode
     >> Affinity
     >> Load weight
     >> Handling priority 

     What is the filtering mode?

Filtering mode	Description
Single Host	Only the NLB node with the highest priority responds
Disable this port range	All traffic for this port range is blocked
Multiple hosts	All NLB nodes respond based on the weight assigned to each node.

What is affinity?

Affinity controls how requests from a client are distributed among multiple nodes in an NLB cluster

Affinity	Description
None	Each client request could be distributed to any node
Single	All requests from a single client are distributed  to a single node
Network	Directs clients requests to the closest node on the basis of subnet

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scenario: 

NLB is a feature installed on any Windows Server 2008 system and optimized for IIS. It provides basic level of software load balancing. The scenario is that we have 2 or more web   fronts (SharPoint 2010 farm) with two or three IPs that participates in load balancing and create a single virtual IP to our users and NLB decides which web front would serve the users via priority. NLB reduces the load on a web front end & provides quality of service to users.

      

  In this topology above two servers, SP2010WFE1 and SP2010WFE2 and we will install NLB feature at both the machines.  We present to our users a single virtual server with host name to Portal and IP address of 192.168.10.10. 


Step1: Adding NLB feature

Add NLB feature at both SP2010WFE1 & SP2010WFE2 as NLB feature has to installed on both the machines.

Step2: Creating the cluster 

Navigate to Start >> Administrative Tools >> Network Load Balancing Manager on SP2010WFE1 server & right click to create "New Cluster"

The Host would be the first server i.e. SP2010WFE1

The Priority would be first server.   

Now we set up the cluster which is called as virtual IP address (VIP). The IP address that is NOT taken and we cant use SP2010WFE1 and SP2010WFE2. It should be unique. I created a new IP address 192.168.10.10 as the cluster IP address.  

In the cluster IP configuration, I supplied full internet name as portal.contoso.com (I will create a DNS entry in the later step) and in the cluster operation mode to be Multicast. 

Click the "Finish" button and kept the default settings.  

Note: Normally in the production environment, we have to limit this because only NLB nodes should be participated. Thus, we can customize the port rules for the production environment. In my example I have only two nodes, i.e. SP2010WFE1 and SP2010WFE2, so I keep it default settings.

Now, we add the second server (SP2010WFE2). 

I put this server's priority to 2. 

Its waiting time for both the nodes to be converged and keep refreshing the NLB manager till both the nodes are converged. 

We now switch to SP2010WFE2 server and we will observe that both the cluster nodes have been automatically converged. Please note it will take some time to converge the nodes. 

Step4: Creating a DNS entry 

Create "A record" in the SP2010WFE1 server within the  "Forward Lookup Zones" and type in:
Name: portal
IP Address: 192.168.10.10 (virtual IP address)

Step4: IIS Settings 

On the IIS manager, right click on "SharePoint - 80" web application >> Edit Bindings >> Add a new host name.

Perform IIS at both machines by navigating Run >> cmd (prompt) >> IISRESET

Step6: Logging into SharePoint Central Administration 

Navigate to SharePoint 2010 Central Administration >> System Settings >> Configure alternate access mappings, choose correct web application and under "Default" zone type in: http://portal/ 

and punch in the http://portal.contoso.com

I tried the administrator log in credentials numerous times but my attempts went in vain. I again researched and tried to make NLB cluster working. I found that from different blog posts about the same issue and found a workaround. 

Step7:  DisableLoopbackCheck on Windows Server 2008 R2 server. 

What is the issue? 

Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 introduced a loopback security check according to Spence Harbar & mentioned that its a Microsoft security feature. Please refer to his blog about more details. 

Even I faced the same issue when  I typed in the http://portal.contoso.com and constantly prompted for the username and password. There is Microsoft KB article 896881 and I followed Method 2. It fixed the issue for me. 

Step8: Failover

For testing the NLB cluster, I navigated to SP2010WFE1 server and stopped the server. 

I was able to browse both at SP2010WFE1 & SP2010WFE2. 

If I stopped both the nodes, I was not able to browse at either of SharePoint Web Front Ends. 

 

  
References:
1) Clustering and High-Availability (MSDN)
2) Network Load Balancing Windows Server 2008 ( YouTube: Arabic)
3) How to Setup Load Balance in SharePoint 2010 Farm
4) SharePoint Central Administration: High Availability, Load Balancing, Security & General Recommendations (Harbar)     

Disable loopback check 
4) SharePoint disable loopback check
5) DisableLoopbackCheck & SharePoint: What every admin and developer should know. (Harbar)
6) Disable the loopback check (MDSN)      
Reference:

http://aarohblah.blogspot.in/2013/01/how-to-setting-up-nlb-in-sharepoint.html