• Article

How to Create VIP Templates for Network Load Balancing (NLB) in VMM

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 SP1 - Virtual Machine Manager, System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager, System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager

You can use the following procedure to create a virtual IP (VIP) template for Microsoft Network Load Balancing (NLB) in Virtual Machine Manager (VMM). A virtual IP template contains load balancer-related configuration settings for a specific type of network traffic. For example, you could create a template that specifies the load balancing behavior for HTTPS traffic on port 443.

When a user creates a service, they can select a virtual IP template to use when they want to load balance a service tier. For more information, see Configuring Load Balancing in VMM Overview.

Note

In service tiers running Linux, or with VM networks configured with network virtualization, you cannot use NLB. If load balancing is needed for such networks, use hardware load balancing. For more information about hardware load balancing, see Configuring Load Balancing in VMM Overview.

To create a virtual IP template for NLB

  1. Open the Fabric workspace.

  2. In the Fabric pane, expand Networking, and then click VIP Templates.

  3. On the Home tab, in the Show group, click Fabric Resources.

  4. On the Home tab, in the Create group, click Create VIP Template.

    The Load Balancer VIP Template Wizard starts.

  5. On the Name page, enter the following information, and then click Next.

    1. The template name and description.

    2. The virtual IP port to use. The virtual IP port is the port that is used for the type of network traffic that you want to load balance.

    For example, enter the name Web tier (HTTPS traffic-NLB), and a description of Uses NLB to load balance HTTPS traffic to production Web servers. Enter the virtual IP port 443.

  6. On the Type page, do the following, and then click Next:

    1. Click Specific.

    2. In the Manufacturer list, click Microsoft.

      By default, in the Model list, Network Load Balancing (NLB) is listed.

  7. On the Protocol page, click the protocol that you want to create the virtual IP template for, and then click Next. You can select TCP, UDP or Both TCP and UDP.

  8. On the Persistence page, you can select the Enable persistence check box to enable session persistence (also known as affinity). If you enable persistence, the load balancer will always try to direct the same client to the same virtual machine that is behind the load balancer. This is based on the source IP address and the subnet mask.

    If you select the Enable persistence check box, accept the default value of Source IP in the Persistence type list. In the Subnet mask to apply list, click either of the following options:

    • Single. If you select this option, NLB directs multiple requests from the same client IP address to the same host in the NLB cluster.

    • Network. If you select this option, NLB directs multiple requests from the same TCP/IP Class C address range to the same host in the NLB cluster. This setting ensures that clients that use multiple proxy servers to access the NLB cluster have their TCP or UDP connections directed to the same host in the NLB cluster.

    Note

    When you deploy a service where a tier is configured to use NLB, VMM automatically creates the NLB host cluster. For more information about how to configure a service tier to use NLB, including the guest operating system requirements, see How to Configure NLB for a Service Tier.

    When you are finished, click Next.

  9. On the Summary page, review the settings, and then click Finish.

    The Jobs dialog box appears. Make sure that the job has a status of Completed, and then close the dialog box.

  10. Verify that the virtual IP template that you added appears in the VIP Templates pane.

See Also

Configuring Load Balancing in VMM Overview
Configuring Networking in VMM
How to Configure NLB for a Service Tier