NLB Budget Policy for 3-Tier Website
We have several "classic asp" clients that access websites loading a central asp.net mvc site that acts like a web service ie. we are requesting MVC controllers directly from ASP sites with extensive use of jquery ajax. This MVC site, in turn, queries the sql server running in a separate box. We have our own session profile which requires a call to the database on every pageview.
At the moment the client facing the websites is in the same field as the mvc site. We now want to use the Windows 2008 NLB service so that they contain high traffic bursts and remain available. On a limited budget ...
What's the best policy: 2x2 - client sites on 2 NLBed boxes and MVC on a separate pair of NLBed boxes, or both in one group of 3 NLBed boxes?
I would go with a 2x2 solution to help keep these MVC sites away from the internet. If you don't need MVCs that are off the grid, go to 2 or 3 NLB'd blocks.
Keep in mind that NLB is an IP-to-IP load balancing solution, so if you are connected over the same connection it will always go to the same server and you really just get Fail over.
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