Network Load Balancing

[Brad Martin]

We currently have a number of Windows 2000 Advanced Server servers serving
up web pages using Network Load Balancing. We are going to be upgrading
them to Windows 2003 Web Edition and we plan on mixing both Win2k3 and Win2k
servers in the NLB cluster while we upgrade all the servers. Is there a
problem with mixing the two OSes in a Network Load Balancing cluster for a
short period of times (a few days at most?)

 

[Ian Howard]

good reference
"http://www.eu.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?
url=/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/support/NLBFAQ.a
sp"

Extract taken from MS document
"Is it possible to mix NT 4.0 WLBS, Win2k WLBS & Windows
Server 2003 in the same cluster?"

Yes, mixing Windows NT 4.0 WLBS, Windows 2000 NLB and
Windows Server 2003 is supported. There is no additional
work needed and the heartbeat packets from NLB in Windows
are backward compatible with WLBS on NT 4.0 and Windows
2000 NLB.

Note In mixed mode, you may not be able to use new
features of Windows Server 2003 NLB like Virtual Cluster,
IGMP Support, Bi-directional affinity etc.

****Here is a question from me if you look at the
following
document "http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?
scid=kb;en-us;232000&sd=tech"

It says that you can bind multiple IP's to the virtual
NWLBS nic however if you follow the instructions they
don't ring true for w2k. Have you set this up before and
if so how was it achieved?

cheers
Ian Howard