I just bought a used CSS 11052 and I'm trying to use it in a non-production environment to do simple load-balancing across two servers that are running Windows Server 2003. My client applications on the front-end of the switch need to access back-end services by VIP and I also have clients running on the back-end servers that need to access other back-end services by VIP.
I have minimal networking background and very little CSS background, so I have some newbie questions:
1. Can a client running on a back-end server access a back-end service by VIP? Even if the back-end client request gets load-balanced to a service running on the same server as the client?
2. I have a simple office network with one simple router/gateway (a Netgear FVS-318) and a single subnet (192.168.33.0/24). What switching topology should I use? I've seen documentation and books talking about bridged, routed, and one-armed designs but I can't tell which would be simplest for me to set up. This is a small setup, so I don't have enough servers to care about using up all the interface ports on the switch. I also don't expect a lot of network traffic.
Any help I could get would be greatly appreciated.
