NLB second NIC card

I have standard w2k3 server in
unicast mode running terminal server. I would like to add a second nic so
that I can use remote desktop to log into to the cluster and be able to
remote control users on any of the servers in the cluster and also would
like to direct the traffic to our exchange, sql, and file servers out the
second card. Would I just be able to add a second nic and put in static
routes to the servers on the same subnet or would I have to build a backend
up on another subnet?

Thanks,
KenC

Hi Ken,

Another newsgroup for NLB discussions is
microsoft.public.windows.server.clustering.

Also for Terminal server communities information, check out
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...erminal/defaul
t.mspx

You can add a 2nd NIC which should be on a 2nd subnet, otherwise attemps to
communicate between NLB cluster nodes will be erratic -- any traffic for
another node that ends up being sent over the NLB nic will simply be
dropped. Perhaps you can make it work with static routes but it's fragile.

Regarding the article, it is simply not correct. First of all, the
heartbeats always go over the NIC that NLB is configured on. Secondly, the
"dedicated IP address" should only be used if you want to add a dedicated
(i.e., node-specific) IP address on the NIC that NLB is configured. If there
is no such IP address on the NLB NIC then you leave the dedicated-IP address
field blank. In fact, the NLB Manager utility will display a warning if it
sees a violation to this rule.

Thanks,

Joseph.



--

Joseph Joy
Software Design Engineer
Windows Server Group, Microsoft
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"KenC" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I have standard w2k3 server in
> unicast mode running terminal server. I would like to add a second nic so
> that I can use remote desktop to log into to the cluster and be able to
> remote control users on any of the servers in the cluster and also would
> like to direct the traffic to our exchange, sql, and file servers out the
> second card. Would I just be able to add a second nic and put in static
> routes to the servers on the same subnet or would I have to build a
backend
> up on another subnet?
>
> Thanks,
> KenC
>
>