Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

Extending WSFC with NLB

You can also use a critical technology called Network Load Balancing (NLB) to ensure that a server is always available to handle requests. NLB works by spreading incoming client requests among a number of servers linked together to support a particular application. A typical example is to use NLB to process incoming visitors to your website. As more visitors come to your site, you can incrementally increase capacity by adding servers. This type of expansion is often referred to as software scaling, or scaling out. Figure 42.4 illustrates this extended clustering architecture with NLB.

FIGURE 42.4 An NLB configuration.