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How to Enable IPX Load Balancing

Articles and Tips: qna

01 Apr 2003


Q.

I am running several NetWare 5.x servers in my shop. I have heard there is a way to make my network more balanced, while at the same time reducing the number of servers that I need. Do you know about this technology, and if so, could you help me?

Billy Balancing the Network

A.

Dear Billy: Novell's Technical Support Web site discusses a technology called Load Balancing, which seems to do what you want. However, the downside is that this only works with the IPX protocol.

Load Balancing is a process by which one can increase efficiency of bandwidth by binding two network cards to the same IPX network address and performs a "round robin" effect of packets to the network from the server. This process will only work for the IPX protocol. Load balancing will not work for Appletalk, TCP/IP, or any other server protocol besides IPX. Also, keep in mind that load balancing does the "round robin" effect for outgoing packets only. Packets coming in to the server from the network will be random depending upon which card is available to take the incoming packets.

It should be said that Load Balancing does not provide redundancy for NICs in the NetWare server, but is to increase efficiency between the NICs. However, if one of the load-balancing NICs goes bad, the load balancing will have to be turned off, the bad NIC removed and unbound from the IPX protocol stack before workstations can attach to the other card in the server. Otherwise, half the outgoing packets will be lost. The only way to get true redundancy in a NetWare server is with SFT III. The following describes how to enable IPX Load Balancing on a NetWare 5.x server:

On a file server running NetWare 5.x, the INETCFG utility is used to enable load balancing. In INETCFG, enable NLSP routing, and define the maximum number of path splits. Then reinitialize the system, and Load Balancing will be enabled. The steps to complete these tasks are as follows. At the server console:

  1. LOAD IPXRTR

  2. LOAD INETCFG. Select the following: Protocols, IPX, Routing Protocol--NLSP with Rip/Sap Compatibility. Expert Configuration Options.

    Maximum Number of Path Splits--set this to the number of cards that
will be used in load balancing, Load Balance NCP Packets to Local
Clients--Enabled

  3. Back up to the main INETCFG screen and select Reinitialize System. As the system reinitializes, watch for the command LOAD BALANCE LOCAL LA =ON to appear on the server console.

* Originally published in Novell AppNotes

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