Network Load Balancing

[Francisco Casco]

Hi, i have a windows 2000 Advanced server and two internet connections to
this server. I want to make the internet conecction to all my hosts faster.
To do this there are software like rain connect and others that gathers all
your isp connections to a virtual one wich the hosts use as a gw, but they
are far to expensive. Is there any alternative so i can use Dynamic Load
Balancing in my w2k box?
There are several linux productos (GNU) but i wnat to stick with my w2k box.
Thanks in advanced...

Francisco

 

[Brian Pennington[MSFT]]

Hi Francisco,

I believe what you are talking about is called "trunking". Where you can take two disparate connections and effectively "trunk" them into a
single connection, therefore effectively increasing your bandwidth.

Unfortunately, Windows 2000 does not have the ability to do this out of the box. Our Network Load Balancing functionality is used to
balance TCP session load to servers services the requests. In many cases this load balancing is for applications and does not increase
your bandwidth capabilities, but availability of the servers for end users.

However, many of the hardware vendors are shipping dual port and quad port NICs with a driver that can support what you are trying to
accomplish. Here is a link to the Intel site that I found. Maybe this can give you some direction on these types of interfaces;
http://www.intel.com/network/connectivity/products/server_adapters.htm?iid=netsite+inc&

I hope that helps.
--
Brian Pennington, MCSE, CCNA
Technical Lead
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support Networking Team.

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