Biztalk Server 2009 - Failover Clustering and Network Load Balancing (NLB)
- by FullOfQuestions
Hi,
We are planning a Biztalk 2009 set up in which we have 2 Biztalk Application Servers and 2 DB Servers (DB servers being in an Active/Passive Cluster). All servers are running Windows Server 2008 R2.
As part of our application, we will have incoming traffic via the MSMQ, FILE and SOAP adapters. We also have a requirement for High-availability and Load-balancing.
Let's say I create two different Biztalk Hosts and assign the FILE receive handler to the first one and the MSMQ receive handler to the second one. I now create two host instances for each of the two hosts (i.e. one for each of my two physical servers).
After reviewing the Biztalk Documentation, this is what I know so far:
For FILE (Receive), high-availablity and load-balancing will be achieved by Biztalk automatically because I set up a host instance on each of the two servers in the group.
MSMQ (Receive) requires Biztalk Host Clustering to ensure high-availability (Host Clustering however requires Windows Failover Clustering to be set up as well). No loading-balancing option is clear here.
SOAP (Receive) requires NLB to achieve Load-balancing and High-availability (if one server goes down, NLB will direct traffic to the other).
This is where I'm completely puzzled and I desperately need your help:
Is it possible to have a Windows Failover Cluster and NLB set up at the same time on the two application servers?
If yes, then please tell me how.
If no, then please explain to me how anyone is acheiving high-availability and load-balancing for MSMQ and SOAP when their underlying prerequisites are mutually exclusive!
Your help is greatly appreciated,
M
