I have configured Primary and Secondary DNS without AD and installed IIS and NLB in both, but if I have to configure everything of Primary into Secondary then what is the use of NLB

Question

I have configured Primary and Secondary DNS without AD and installed IIS and NLB in both, but if I have to configure everything of Primary into Secondary then what is the use of NLB

Manish Chawda 431

Hi,

I have configured Primary and Secondary DNS without AD and installed IIS and NLB in both, but if I have to configure everything of Primary into Secondary then what is the use of NLB.
Here by attached detail explanation of my configuration which is working fine, but I want that if Primary is down then clients can resolve the site using Secondary using NLB configuration. But here based on the KB available on internet it seems that I have replicate everything of Primary into Secondary even after configuring NLB.

I think then there is no use of NLB or my configuration and understanding are wrong. Please advise.

146764-dns-iis-nlb.pdf

Bruce Zhang-MSFT 3,771 Reputation points

2021-11-08T05:31:45.027+00:00
Hi @Manish Chawda ,

The documentation says that:

The Network Load Balancing (NLB) feature distributes traffic across several servers by using the TCP/IP networking protocol. By combining two or more computers that are running applications into a single virtual cluster, NLB provides reliability and performance for web servers and other mission-critical servers.

The servers in an NLB cluster are called hosts, and each host runs a separate copy of the server applications. NLB distributes incoming client requests across the hosts in the cluster. You can configure the load that is to be handled by each host. You can also add hosts dynamically to the cluster to handle increased load. NLB can also direct all traffic to a designated single host, which is called the default host.

From this you can know that each hosts should have same configurations because you won't know that which host NLB will send requests to. Only if the hosts have the same configuration, the request will get the same response.
Manish Chawda 431 Reputation points

2021-11-09T13:42:54.277+00:00

Hi,

Thanks for your comments.
Hope you would have gone through my attachment.

Every thing you mentioned I have attached the screenshots in my attachment and based on your comments configurations are same, the question is that if I have configured 2 DNS as Primary and Secondary with NLB and IIS in both servers, then what is the use of NLB if I have configure everything in same. That I am not clear. Can you help me with some links or videos. I have searched the exact use but no one explains it. All are having the same stuff.

Hope my issue is clear. Please help

2 answers

Your answer

Bruce Zhang-MSFT 3,771 Reputation points

2021-11-08T05:31:45.027+00:00

Hi @Manish Chawda ,

The documentation says that:

The Network Load Balancing (NLB) feature distributes traffic across several servers by using the TCP/IP networking protocol. By combining two or more computers that are running applications into a single virtual cluster, NLB provides reliability and performance for web servers and other mission-critical servers.

The servers in an NLB cluster are called hosts, and each host runs a separate copy of the server applications. NLB distributes incoming client requests across the hosts in the cluster. You can configure the load that is to be handled by each host. You can also add hosts dynamically to the cluster to handle increased load. NLB can also direct all traffic to a designated single host, which is called the default host.

From this you can know that each hosts should have same configurations because you won't know that which host NLB will send requests to. Only if the hosts have the same configuration, the request will get the same response.
Manish Chawda 431 Reputation points

2021-11-09T13:42:54.277+00:00

Hi,

Thanks for your comments.
Hope you would have gone through my attachment.

Every thing you mentioned I have attached the screenshots in my attachment and based on your comments configurations are same, the question is that if I have configured 2 DNS as Primary and Secondary with NLB and IIS in both servers, then what is the use of NLB if I have configure everything in same. That I am not clear. Can you help me with some links or videos. I have searched the exact use but no one explains it. All are having the same stuff.

Hope my issue is clear. Please help

Answer 1

Hi @Manish Chawda ,

Sorry that I misunderstand primary secondary DNS and server cluster. If you have set primary and secondary DNS, there is no need to use NLB for NDS server.

Configure a zone(example.com) and create it as primary on a server, secondary on another one and configure zone tranfer between the two. Then you can manage records for the zone on the primary server. So secondary DNS can be regarded as a copy of primary DNS, and both need to maintain the same configuration to prevent primary DNS from being down.

When the primary DNS is down, the secondary DNS has a copy of zone. If the primary DNS can be restored in a short time, you just need to wait. If primary server will never back, you transform the secondary zones in primary zones on the first server, or you reinstall a box as the primary dns server and you re-configure the primary zones there.

Secondary DNS servers can share the burden of incoming requests to the domain so that the primary server doesn’t get overloaded and cause a denial-of-service, send roughly equal amounts of traffic to each server. And this is also a main functions of NLB.

If the answer is the right solution, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Best regards,
Bruce Zhang

Manish Chawda 431 Reputation points

2021-11-12T13:03:40.13+00:00

Hi,

Thanks for the same. But say if I want to automate the same i.e. no worry if Primary is down or Secondary is Up then I am going with NLB, which I have already configured. I have the same configuration of IIS in Secondary as Primary.

Now my confusion is that since I have configured Primary and Secondary without AD, and have configured groups and users on Primary as local users and groups, now I need to have the same copy of users and groups on Secondary ? Also the content of websites need to be copied to Secondary ? It is very laborious ?

Say for sake of simplicity if I configure AD with users and groups as well as create shared storage for storing website contents, then would be ok that I will be in position to use NLB ? Please advise. I want to see NLB at work.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 2

Manish Chawda 431

Hi,

I have one question in my account can u help me resolve it?
Question heading is as under

I have configured Work Folder configured using GPO

Bruce Zhang-MSFT 3,771 Reputation points

2021-11-15T02:06:49.243+00:00

Hi @Manish Chawda ,

now I need to have the same copy of users and groups on Secondary ? Also the content of websites need to be copied to Secondary ?

Yes, you need to keep primary and secondary DNS server having same content. Only in this way, when the primary DNS is down, same users can get the same response form secondary DNS as primary. As my answer said, if you configure zone transfer between them, it won't very laborious.

if I configure AD with users and groups as well as create shared storage for storing website contents, then would be ok that I will be in position to use NLB ?

I'm sorry that I am not an expert in AD, and I don't know much about AD. So I can't give you an accurate answer. If there is no AD, you can use NLB but it is not required. No matter whether it is used or not, it will not have a big impact.

Share via

I have configured Primary and Secondary DNS without AD and installed IIS and NLB in both, but if I have to configure everything of Primary into Secondary then what is the use of NLB

2 answers

Your answer