NLB with VM and Physical Server

[edp2007]

I'm not quite sure which category this question falls under. Essentially I have 1 web server and I'm looking to be able to have a VM configured in an NLB cluster to create a fail-over for my current web server.

When I have tried to configure this, all the traffic immediately goes to my VM. I think this may be due to a RARP packet broadcast, but I'm not sure. Aside from that, the difference between processor utilization is unreal. I understand that the VM is going to have limitations I purely want the VM to act as a fail-over as a part of my DRP, but even with 2 processors and 4 GB of RAM allocated to it the difference is something like: 15% utilization on the physical box / 80 - 90% utilization on the VM.

I'm fairly new to ESX and am just wondering is there a better way to go about achieving this? Also is it unreasonable to think that the utilization on the VM should be better that the percentages above?

Also when I shutdown the VM the NLB from the physical server doesn't seem to pick up correctly and I'm basically down until I break the cluster and reset IIS, etc.

Thanks in Advance,

Ed

[WillemB · Accepted solution]

The difference in performance is possible since we do not have any input on what the physical server is and what the VM settngs and platform are. Also identifying the process eating most of the 80-90% CPU will be helpful. Try sysinternals process monitor.

The smart way to do the load balancing is either DNS round-robin if you have a static html web server (i doubt that ).

The other smart way is to place a Cisco Content switch in front of it and configure it to load-balance with sticky-sessions.

For me MS Network load balancing is possible Physical-with-Physical and VM-with-VM.

I don't have any experience with Physical-with-VM. Here's a link with solution for a similar problem

[edp2007]

The ESX host and Physical server are both running on Dell 2800s. Both are running Win 2003 Std. SP2. As for the processes which are running the utilization up are dllhost.exe and w3wp.exe - essentially IIS and its components. Thanks for the link, I'll review it and see what I can come up with.

[WillemB]

Then the VM has a slice of pie wheras the physical server has the whole pie. Maybe you can elevate the VM specs.

Other than that it might be you VM drawing all the traffic

[TheVirtualNut]

Do you have VMotion configured? if so, is the VM NIC in multicast mode?

I would be using a hardware NLB device such as an F5 BIG-IP or a Cisco module

NUTS!

[edp2007]

No, I don't have VMotion at this point. I would prefer a hardware solution, unfortunately at this point it's just not in the budget. I was trying to get by with the Windows NLB option at least until I am able to go with something like and F5 or Cisco solution.

Thanks