Different net core web applications using the same physical path with load balancer

Question

My IT team has deployed my asp.net core (v7) web application on IIS 10, on 4 different servers to use a load balancer.
All 4 apps point to a shared network path to avoid sync issues when updating app files

Using the same route is a recommended scenario?
What problems can I find?

Answer 1

Hi @pacoweb,

When you deploy an asp.net core web application on IIS 10 and use load balancing on different servers, you can choose to have each web server keep content locally, or you can choose to configures all web servers point to a shared network path that contains website content. But these two methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, you need to choose according to the actual situation.

Local Content Infrastructure

The local content infrastructure requires that each web server keeps the content locally.

Advantages

1. Local content provides isolation between servers. If one server goes down, other servers are not affected.
2. Local content requires fewer computers, because it does not need a back-end content file server.
3. You can easily take a web server off line for testing or troubleshooting.

Disadvantages

1. Content must be replicated between servers. A common way to handle content replication is by using Distributed File System Replication (DFSR). However, DFSR requires access to a domain server.
2. If the website writes to a disk, the data is not available to other servers until it is replicated.
3. Each server must have a complete copy of all content. For large websites, the cost of content storage can be high.

Shared Network Content Infrastructure

Shared network content configures all web servers point to a central location that contains the website content.

Advantages

1. Shared network content is relatively simple to configure and is a good starting point for individuals who are new to web farms or to Microsoft web farm technologies.
2. Content written to disk is immediately available on all servers.
3. Adding additional servers to the farms is relatively easy. You simply point to the content UNC path.
4. Only a few copies of the website files need to be kept. Hard disks on the web servers need contain only the operating system.

Disadvantages

1. The back-end file server is a single point of failure. This problem can be minimized by mirroring the file server and providing a means of failover control.
2. Network bandwidth can become a limiting factor for a busy web farm.
3. File locking issues might arise as multiple servers use the same files.

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