Load Balancing and Network Design with 5324

Question

Hi, I'm a newbie who just acquired a PowerConnect 5324. I need to configure the switch as a load balancer to split traffic to two HTTP servers (two physical boxes, Apache HTTP and Apache Tomcat installed on each of the box, tomcat needs to be clustered). I also need to use the same switch to connect other three boxes (two clustered MySQL servers, and one backup server with everything - httpd, tomcat and mysql). Could someone help me to better leverage the 5324 switch for this case? A sample scenario (with some example IP addresses) would be extremely helpful. I'm thinking to acquire another PowerConnect 5324 for failover/HA purpose. How would the diagram look like with the added switch? Thanks in advance.

me2050 · Answer

Could any experts shed some lights?

bh1633 · Answer

5324 is not load balancer.

me2050 · Answer

Sorry, forgot to post the link to the doc - http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/network/pc5324/en/UG_Ad/UGAddendum.pdf It needs the latest firmware.

me2050 · Answer

The doc has a section to set up 5324 as a LB, but I'm not familiar with the LAG thing. It says it can be used as layer2, layer2+3, or layer2+3+4. I thought it should be able to use it as a layer3 router at the IP level, but not sure if it can be used as a LB to split http traffic? Thoughts?

bh1633 · Answer

5324 can not be used to balance http traffic between servers.   Link aggregation is a feature that combines more than one port to act as one logical port with increased bandwidth.  This is usually used between 2 switches or between a switch and one server with more than one nic.  This features distributes the traffic on these multiple ports based on MAC addresses (layer 2) or IP addresses (Layer 3) or UDP/TCP ports (Layer 4) of each packet.  It does not distribute traffic on these links based on utilization of any one link.  With a large number of sources and destinations in the traffic, the traffic gets distributed relatively evenly.  With a small number of sources and destination, the traffic may not be destributed on all the links.

me2050 · Answer

Thanks for the clarification. This helps a lot. Is there any switch that can do the following features all in one unit: 1)Layer 2 switching; 2) Layer 3 routing; 3) HTTP load balancing? These would help to reduce the space cost when dropping the devices in a data center.

Message Edited by me2050 on 04-12-2007 01:18 PM

bh1633 · Answer

No Dell switches do this.  You need a web load balancer.  Dell may sell other peoples brands of these if you have a Dell sales guy.

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