Thin Clients - Load Balancing

[wesleyw]

Is there a an open source load balancing package out there that can manage windows 2003 terminal servers? I know Citrix, Sun, Ericom, 2X all do this but is there anything like this for free? LTSP is interesting but it's specifcally for Linux, I don't mind the software running on linux but it needs to control windows terminals services servers.


Wes

[Lee_K_81]

Take a look at windows built in Network Load Balancing (NLB) it's more round-robin than true load balancing, i.e. dish it out to TS 1, then TS 2, then TS 3, etc. , rather than check which has most free RAM, CPU.

I trialled 2X and although it was good we had various problems with connections timing out. If you do use NLB be careful about setting clients as persistant, i did this and tested during half term - worked fine, however once all the staff and pupils came back and started logging on to 120 desktops & 100+ staff laptops, the 150 thin clients trying to constantly connect flooded my network in much the same way as a loop back would. Maybe it's because literally every one of my switches is at full capacity.

[wesleyw]

We should be alright with the capacity each Thin Client only uses around 20k to run a session (Settings can be changed) but even if every one ran at 1mb we'd still have the bandwidth I think (Well I hope so seeing as we spent enough on a new network infrastructure this year ).

I'd use the NLB but I'd prefer a little more management options and hopefully the ability to run the system externally via some sort of web interface.

Wes

[Lee_K_81]

Wasnt necessarily the band width that was the problem, it was the constant dimultaneous connection attempts when nobody tried to connect, the session timed out and then re-connected.

The NLB doesnt include many decent load balancing or management features unfortunatley.

[linescanner]

MS NLB should be band of the face of the planet. It causes more issues than it solves.

If you have good quality switches, NLB will go potty and just about pack up.

2x is the only thing we have found to be reliable.

Had a chat with a 3COM engineer the other day and he pretty much said the same thing.

[Geoff]

I'd go for DNS round robin over NLB.

[Lee_K_81]

Had a chat with a 3COM engineer the other day and he pretty much said the same thing.

Sorry in advance but it has to be said: 3COM employ engineers???????

[linescanner]

Must have been the only one in the country

[wesleyw]

Well I'm currently in contact with Andy about the Sun Global Desktop and I'll be trialling SGD, Webconnect, 2x here for the rest of this year then we'll look at purchasing a system in Feb I think.


Wes