CSM vs MS NLB

[m.baker]

Hi,

Is anybody able to explain the advantages/disavantages of using Microsoft Windows NLB for load balancing of the IIS web services as opposed to use the CSM ?

Our web group is pushing to use NLB but I want to assess if that is the right thing to do and if the CSM can provide any value in this case ?

Thanks

[shamilton-wilkes]

What features do you need?

What scale/capacity do you need?

If you are pushing hundreds of megabits and tens of 000's of current connections, then there's no comparison. If you are a tiny site and it's not business critical (e.g. financial or something) then the NLB may be OK and CSMs would be overkill.

[m.baker]

OK. I understand that...But beside performance...What would be the advantage of one over the other ?

[Gilles Dufour]

I'm not sure what the MS solution can provide.

I would say the advantage is network based vs server based.

You want the inteligence in the server or the network ?

The CSS and CSM offers DoS protection mechanism.

You can do ssl offloading.

You can inspect url request and select a specific server based on some url, file extension, ...

I also would like to mention that the CSS11501 might be a cheaper solution than a CSM [escpecially if you do not have already a cat6k].

If you decide to go to CSS11501, it would be good to decide if you need ssl offload as the 11501 is not modular - so you'll need to buy this functionality immediately even if you only need it in the future.

The 11503 and 11506 are modular and you can ssl module later on.

Regards,

Gilles.