Quick Create a Windows Server 2012 R2 Network Load Balancing (NLB) ,How To , Step by Step #winserv #NLB #ws2012

As there are still many questions on how to setup a Windows NLB. Or not getting a working situation with all kind of different errors.

I made already two Blog post about NLB. This blog post will be a bit off Both.

https://robertsmit.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/create-a-new-network-load-balancing-nlb-cluster-on-windows-server-2012-r2-winserv-nlb/

https://robertsmit.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/windows-2012-clustering-network-load-balancing-nlb-how-to-step-by-step/

So for starting I have 4 NLB nodes MVPSQL141 to MVPSQL 144

The NLB tools I installed with Powershell Run this on every NLB node!

Install-WindowsFeature nlb –IncludeManagementTools

 

Now that the tools are installed We can start with the Configuration of the NLB.

Starting the NLB manager to Create the NLB cluster and joining the Other Nodes.

All my nodes have multiple network cards and for the NLB I use always a dedicated NIC to avoid problems.

I select the create new cluster from the menu and add the First NLB node.

As you can see there are 3 nic’s in this case I use the Ethernet connection. The Public connection is connected to the Domain.

And All NIC’s have a fixed IP Addresses.

As you can see the nic has a dedicated IP if the nic has a DHCP Address you can give here a fixed IP by selecting ADD

This step is adding the Cluster IP by selecting ADD and then choose the right NLB Cluster IP!

Right Creating a DNS name for the NLB Cluster.

As I will only use Port 80 I changed the Rule and selected only port 80. I does not make sense to select all the ports when using only 80 and or 443.

Now that the Cluster is created We can join other Nodes with add host to the cluster I the menu. You can do only One Node at the time. the same screens as above are showing so no reason to capture this. However I have one node that has no fixed IP

When Adding this node there is a little warning.

 

As you can see the IP is not there therefore I do ADD and create a FIX IP on the NIC when I select Next the port policy will appear and the node Will be joined to the Cluster.

If anything fails to join the NLB node to the Cluster you need to look on this node. Creating NLB is a simple Process. Basic rule all nics need to See and Ping on FQDN and IP incoming and outgoing ! and make sure the NLB DNS entry is there and make sure the reversed lookup is also there!

When joining the NLB IP to IIS make sure you use the Cluster NLB IP and remove all other IP bindings!!

 

Happy nlb clustering

Robert Smit

@clusterMVP

https://robertsmit.wordpress.com