WEB208
IIS 6: Effective Management
of Web Farms
Scott Forsyth
Director of IT
ORCS Web, Inc.
About
Scott Forsyth
Director of Technology, ORCS Web, Inc.
http://weblogs.asp.net/OWScott
http://www.orcsweb.com
ORCS Web Hosts Many Community Websites
http://www.asp.net
http://www.aspalliance.com
http://www.dotnet247.com
http://channel9.msdn.com
http://blogs.msdn.com
Many Others
Microsoft MVP, ASPInsider
MCTS – SQL Server 2005
Purpose
What
Exploring the layers of a Web farm
Front-end Load Balancers
IIS Configuration Replication
Content Store Options
Tips and Tricks
Demos will build a Web farm front to back
Who
IT Implementer – Setting it up
Architect – Seeing the big picture
Developer – How to get on the admin’s good side
General Web Farm Diagram
Clustering vs. Load Balancing
Two Camps For High Availability Solutions
Clustering
Load Balancing
Microsoft Cluster Server
Microsoft NLB, or third party
Stateful
Stateless
Strong Awareness of other parts
Loose Awareness of other parts
Microsoft SQL Server/Microsoft
Exchange Server
IIS/Terminal Services/RRAS
Front End Load Balancers
Types of Load Balancers
RRDNS – “Poor Man’s Load Balancer”
Inexpensive and easy to configure
Doesn’t “balance”, only distributes
Doesn’t support user affinity
Doesn’t account for failed servers
Good for fronting smaller Web farm clusters
Third-party Load Balancing Solution
Cisco LocalDirector, Foundry Networks Server Iron, etc.
Most powerful and feature rich of the options
Can be fully redundant
Windows Network Load Balancer (NLB)
Building the Front End - NLB
Scott Forsyth
ORCS Web, Inc.
Network Load Balancing
Overview
All Nodes listen on virtual IP
Uses an efficient algorithm to balance the load
Benefits
Included with all versions of Microsoft Windows Server 2003
Exceptionally easy to configure
Supports Affinity/Stickiness – Class C Optional
Consider AOL and other large ISPs
Considerations
Load Calculations only based on network
Nothing out of the box to test Application Layer 7
Limited to 32 servers
Unicast / Multicast
Web Nodes – IIS Replication
Manually From the GUI
Scripting
ADSI / WMI / Batch files
IISCnfg.vbs
Copy – 100% but few seconds of downtime
Merge – all but deletes – no downtime
Modified Version – no password in scripting file
AD vs. Local users and groups
Clean up machine specific references including IIS_WPG
App Center 2000
COM+ Replication
IIS Replication Using IISCnfg.vbs
Scott Forsyth
ORCS Web, Inc.
Content Storage
Local Content Diagram
Content Storage
Local Content
Pros
Complete isolation between servers
Rarely disk bottlenecks
Easy to scale out
Cons
Can’t support sites with writable content to disk
More total disk space required
Content Storage
Remote Content Server Diagram
Content Storage
NAS/SAN Remote Content
Pros
Allows writing to disk from code – watch for locking though
Changes to disk or code are immediate
Less copies of data, less expensive disk requirements
Cons
Potential Disk IO bottlenecks
Heavy network dependency – NAS
Larger upfront costs (but good long term ROI)- SAN
NAS Considerations
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q221790
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\caspol -m -ag 1
-url "file://\\server.orcsweb.com\*" FullTrust -exclusive on
Security on Share and NTFS permissions
Content Replication
Distributed File Systems Replication (DFS) – R2
Remote differential compression (RDC)
Bandwidth throttling from 16Kbps to 256Mbps + full
Conflict and Deleted folder – “last writer wins”
Robocopy
From Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools
Configurable, flexible
Can replicate security settings
Example command:
robocopy.exe "D:\domains\orcsweb.com"
"\\66.129.120.199\orcsweb.com$"
/LOG:d:\admin\orcsweb_com_log.txt /E /W:5 /Z /PURGE
App Center 2000
Configuring a NAS Server Using DFS
Scott Forsyth
ORCS Web, Inc.
Web Nodes
ASP.NET Considerations
ViewState / forms authentication / webresource.axd
<machineKey \> set to common value
<machineKey
validationKey='9D077E8E3B20D24AE0394764CDC6BEBA625374441B
C010234CE6491152E91266367832BB573672245FF3F12924E2B89477
BDA89D2BCB917E578B99E710F721B2'
decryptionKey='AF56C7ACEBB6A05A3AC198A70D615A246C2283B80
361E4C4' validation='SHA1'/>
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/articles/GenerateMachineKey/GenerateMa
chineKey.aspx
http://www.orcsweb.com/articles/ASPNETMachineKey.aspx
Caching
For performance read-only – no change required
If caching integrity is required – needs
extra considerations
Session State
InProc
Default, a no-go on a Web farm
ASP.NET State Server
Reasonably fast and easy to configure
Not redundant
All SiteIDs need to be the same
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\
aspnet_state\Parameters\AllowRemoteConnection = 1
SQL Server
Scalable and potentially redundant
InstallSqlState.sql / aspnet_regsql.exe
Build your own.
ASP.NET v2.0 model makes it easier to develop custom providers
Third-party solutions
nCache – Alachisoft
Tips and Tricks
Local Node Testing
Loopback adapter and NLB force local testing
DNS – Node Specific Testing URLs
Setup DNS wildcard – DNS once per node
All host headers on all servers
System.Environment.MachineName
app_offline.htm - ASP.NET v2.0
SSL - One Certificate, Multiple Nodes
IIS metabase replication requires same cert
Filemon shows remote content on “Web servers”
New Home for IIS Community!
TechCenter to easily find the info you need
Advice and assistance in Forums
Insider info on new technology (IIS7!)
Online labs, play with IIS7 in your browser
Some of the Upcoming IIS Sessions
Today
4:30 – 5:45 IIS 6: Everything the Web Administrator Needs to Know about MOM
Tomorrow
8:30 – 9:45 IIS 7: End-to-end overview of Microsoft’s New Web Application Server
2:00 – 3:15 Chalktalk: IIS 6.0 Security: Setting the Record Straight
4:45 – 5:00 Chalktalk: IIS and Microsoft.com Operations: Migrating IIS 6.0 to 64 bit
5:30 – 6:45 Chalktalk: IIS 7 Q&A
Thursday
2:45 – 4:00 IIS 7: Hands on Workshop for Building Custom Web Server Extensions
Friday
1:00 – 2:45 IIS 7: Getting the Most out of New Delegation and Configuration
Capabilities
Resources
IISCnfg.vbs http://www.orcsweb.com/articles/IISCnfg.aspx
DFS
http://www.orcsweb.com/articles/DFSResources.aspx
NLB
http://www.orcsweb.com/articles/NLBResources.aspx
Robocopy http://www.orcsweb.com/articles/Robocopy.aspx
Web Farm http://www.orcsweb.com/articles/WebfarmResources.aspx
Machine Key http://www.orcsweb.com/articles/ASPNETMachineKey.aspx
Technical Chats and Webcasts
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/usa/webcasts/default.asp
Microsoft Learning and Certification
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/default.mspx
MSDN & TechNet
http://microsoft.com/msdn
http://microsoft.com/technet
Technical Community Sites
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/default.mspx
User Groups
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/usergroups/default.mspx
Fill out a session
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