NLB – by: Dante Leo

Network Load Balancing (NLB) service is a feature included in Windows Server 2016 and
earlier versions. This service balances network traffic load sent to the NLB cluster on a
TCP/IP network. The NLB cluster is a configuration of multiple virtual IP addresses. The
network traffic load is balanced among the multiple servers on the cluster. Moreover, load
balancers provide built-in redundancy by sensing any device failures on the network and
redistributing their load over other devices. Load balancers are normally used to ensure
reliable delivery of Internet server applications such as those used on Web, FTP, firewall, proxy,
virtual private network (VPN), and other mission-critical servers. A single computer running
Windows Server 2016 provides a limited level of server reliability and scalable performance.
However, by combining the resources of two or more computers running one of the products in
Windows Server 2016 into a single virtual cluster, NLB can deliver the reliability and
performance that Web servers and other mission-critical servers need.
The diagram shows two connected Network Load Balancing clusters. The first cluster
consists of two hosts and the second cluster consists of four hosts. This is one example of
how you can use NLB.

Each host runs a separate copy of the desired server applications (such as applications for
Web, FTP, and Telnet servers). NLB distributes incoming client requests across the hosts
in the cluster. The load weight to be handled by each host can be configured as necessary.
You can also add hosts dynamically to the cluster to handle increased load. In addition,
NLB can direct all traffic to a single host, which is called the default host.

NLB allows all of the computers in the cluster to be addressed by the same set of cluster
IP addresses, and it maintains a set of unique, dedicated IP addresses for each host. For
load-balanced applications, when a host fails or goes offline, the load is automatically
redistributed among the computers that are still operating. When a computer fails or goes
offline unexpectedly, active connections to the failed or offline server are lost. However,
if you bring a host down in purpose, you can use the drainstop command to service all
active connections prior to bringing the computer offline. In any case, when it is ready,
the offline computer can transparently rejoin the cluster and regain its share of the
workload, which allows the other computers in the cluster to handle less traffic.

The hosts in an NLB cluster exchange heartbeat messages to maintain consistent data
about the cluster’s membership. By default, when a host fails to send heartbeat messages
within five seconds, it has failed. When a host has failed, the remaining hosts in the
cluster converge and do the following:

 Establish which hosts are still active members of the cluster.

 Elect the host with the highest priority as the new default host.

 Ensure that all new client requests are handled by the surviving hosts.

During a convergence, the surviving hosts look for consistent heartbeats. If the host that
failed to send heartbeats begins to provides heartbeats consistently, it rejoins the cluster
in the course of the convergence. When a new host attempts to join the cluster, it sends
heartbeat messages that also trigger a convergence. After all cluster hosts agree on the
current cluster membership, the client load is redistributed to the remaining hosts, and the
convergence completes.

Convergence generally takes only a few seconds, so interruption in client service by the
cluster is minimal. During convergence, hosts that are still active continue handling client
requests without affecting existing connections. Convergence ends when all hosts report a
consistent view of the cluster membership and distribution map for several heartbeat
periods.
Features in Network Load Balancing

NLB includes the following features:

Scalability

Scalability is the measure of how well a computer, service, or application can grow to
meet increasing performance demands. For NLB clusters, scalability is the ability to
incrementally add one or more systems to an existing cluster when the overall load of the
cluster exceeds its capabilities. To support scalability, NLB can do the following:

 Balance load requests across the NLB cluster for individual TCP/IP services.

 Support up to 32 computers in a single cluster.

 Balance multiple server load requests (from either the same client or from several
clients) across multiple hosts in the cluster.

 Support the ability to add hosts to the NLB cluster as the load goes up, without bringing
the cluster down.

 Support the ability to remove hosts from the cluster when the load goes down.

 Enable high performance and low overhead through fully pipelined implementation.
Pipelining allows requests to be sent to the NLB cluster without waiting for response to
the previously sent one.

High-availability

A highly available system reliably provides an acceptable level of service with minimal
downtime. To provide high availability, NLB includes built-in features that can
automatically:

 Detect and recover from a cluster host that fails or goes offline.

 Balance the network load when hosts are added or removed.

 Recover and redistribute the workload within ten seconds.

Manageability

NLB provides the following manageability features:

 You can manage and configure multiple NLB clusters and the cluster hosts from a single
computer by using NLB Manager.
  You can specify the load balancing behavior for a single IP port or group of ports by
using port management rules.

 You can define different port rules for each Web site. If you use the same set of load-
balanced servers for multiple applications or Web sites, port rules are based on the
destination virtual IP address (using virtual clusters).

 You can direct all client requests to a single host by using optional, single-host rules. NLB
routes client requests to a particular host that is running specific applications.

 You can block undesired network access to certain IP ports.

 You can enable Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) support on the cluster
hosts to control switch flooding (when operating in multicast mode).

 You can remotely start, stop, and control NLB actions from any networked computer
that is running Windows by using shell commands or scripts.

 You can view the Windows event log to check NLB events. NLB logs all actions and
cluster changes in the event log.

Ease-of-use

NLB provides many features that make it convenient to use:

 NLB is installed as a standard Windows networking driver component.

 NLB requires no hardware changes to enable and run.

 NLB Manager enables you to create new NLB clusters.

 NLB Manager enables you to configure and manage multiple clusters and all of the
cluster's hosts from a single remote or local computer.

 NLB lets clients access the cluster by using a single, logical Internet name and virtual IP
address—known as the cluster IP address (it retains individual names for each
computer). NLB allows multiple virtual IP addresses for multihomed servers.

SLB in windows server 2016

New in Windows Server 2016 is it includes a new Azure-inspired Software Load
Balancer (SLB) as a component of the Software Defined Networking (SDN)
infrastructure. Use SLB instead of NLB if you are using SDN, are using non-Windows
workloads, need outbound network address translation (NAT), or need Layer 3 (L3) or
non-TCP based load balancing. You can continue to use NLB with Windows Server 2016
for non-SDN deployments.

So We got now two Load Balancing features :

Network Load Balancing (NLB) for non-SDN

Software Load Balancing (SLB) for SDN
Software Defined Networking (SDN) provides a method to centrally configure and
manage physical and virtual network devices such as routers, switches, and gateways in
your datacenter. Virtual network elements such as Hyper-V Virtual Switch, Hyper-V
Network Virtualization, and Windows Server Gateway are designed to be integral
elements of your software defined networking infrastructure. While you can still use your
existing physical switches, routers, and other hardware devices, you can achieve deeper
integration between the virtual network and the physical network if these devices are
designed for compatibility with software defined networking.