asp.net and webfarm, web garden?

[Billy Zhang]

Is there any doc to config webfarm for asp.net 3.5 app?

I have found below article:

PRB: Session State Is Lost in Web Farm If You Use SqlServer or StateServer
Session Mode
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q325056

Does this article apply to asp.net 3.5 app?

And what situation do I need web garden if I have configed web farm?

Thanks,
-Billy

 

[Anthony Jones]

Is there any doc to config webfarm for asp.net 3.5 app?

It would help if you stated your OS or IIS version.
However there isn't any thing I can think of that is specific to ASP.NET
where web farms are concerned. So search for "IIS Web Farm" should provide
useful resources, especially in TechNet.

I have found below article:

PRB: Session State Is Lost in Web Farm If You Use SqlServer or StateServer
Session Mode
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q325056

Does this article apply to asp.net 3.5 app?

Yes but when configured properly the session state works.

And what situation do I need web garden if I have configed web farm?

A web garden is useful where a 32bit application pool is memory hungry and
the server it is installed on has plenty more than than 4GB of spare
physical memory. For an ASP.NET 3.5 app that you think may be memory hungry
you should use a 64bit OS and a 64 bit app pool not a web garden.

 

[Billy Zhang]

So if the application path of the Web site (for example, \LM\W3SVC\2) in the
Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) metabase in webfarm are same,
the
state will work fine, right?

I am using windows 2003 32bit, IIS6.0.

 

[Anthony Jones]

So if the application path of the Web site (for example, \LM\W3SVC\2) in
the
Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) metabase in webfarm are
same,
the
state will work fine, right?

Thats what the article says. I'd be inclinded to export the metabase from
one and import it into the other. For a web farm to work effectively you
don't want just its path to be the same but you want the metabase version
number of the servers involved to be the same. Otherwise you could see what
should be cachable content be served up for more frequently than it needs to
and hurting performance.

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:
!> For a web farm to work effectively you don't want just its path to be the same
!> but you want the metabase version number of the servers involved to be the same.

I've never heard of that requirement, and neither has Dino Esposito.

http://www.ddj.com/windows/184416839

<quote>
Deploying an ASP.NET application in a web farm scenario poses a few extra configuration issues.

Because the requests for the application can be processed on any machine in the farm,
all machine.config files in the various machines must be synchronized on the value of a few critical attributes.

There are three information types that must be configured in the same way across the farm:
forms authentication cookies, view-state message authentication check (MAC) generation,
and session state.

The information corresponds to three sections: <machineKey>, <authentication>, and <sessionState>.
</quote>

No sign of metabase congruency needed. There's specific details in the cited article.

Can you post the source of your information ?

 

[Anthony Jones]

re:
!> For a web farm to work effectively you don't want just its path to be
the same
!> but you want the metabase version number of the servers involved to be
the same.

I've never heard of that requirement, and neither has Dino Esposito.

http://www.ddj.com/windows/184416839

<quote>
Deploying an ASP.NET application in a web farm scenario poses a few extra
configuration issues.

Because the requests for the application can be processed on any machine
in the farm,
all machine.config files in the various machines must be synchronized on
the value of a few critical attributes.

There are three information types that must be configured in the same way
across the farm:
forms authentication cookies, view-state message authentication check
(MAC) generation,
and session state.

The information corresponds to three sections: <machineKey>,
<authentication>, and <sessionState>.
</quote>

No sign of metabase congruency needed. There's specific details in the
cited article.

Can you post the source of your information ?

Here is a good start.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pr...d58-2a96-4bd8-8ac1-2a67b43284f1.mspx?mfr=true

I've also been stung badly by this bug in IE6:-

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922703

 

[Anthony Jones]

Me too.

Yet another reason to ditch IE6 - one of the worst pieces of (Microsoft)
software ever, IMO, including DOS 4...

I would agree. However telling one of your largest customers who strictly
control the configuration of 1000's of their desktop PCs to ditch IE6 would
not have gone down too well. Of course its this sort of customer that
would resort to the use of a web farm.

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:
!> Here is a good start.

A "Network Load Balanced (NLB) cluster" is not the same as a "web farm".

See "Enterprise Design for Web Application Services" :
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/so.../raguide/WebApplicationServices/igwabp_2.mspx

"Applications may be configured as a Web farm (where a group of Web servers performs different functions
for the same application) or as Web gardens (where different application pools are configured to perform the
same set of processes)."

A Network Load Balanced cluster can handle many applications, so that scalability can be achieved.

See the section of the above linked article titled "Load Balancing Web Application Services".

I.O.W., a Network Load Balanced (NLB) cluster can provide
scalability to many web farms, but is not a web farm itself.

 

[Anthony Jones]

re:
!> Here is a good start.

A "Network Load Balanced (NLB) cluster" is not the same as a "web farm".

See "Enterprise Design for Web Application Services" :
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/so.../raguide/WebApplicationServices/igwabp_2.mspx

"Applications may be configured as a Web farm (where a group of Web
servers performs different functions
for the same application) or as Web gardens (where different application
pools are configured to perform the
same set of processes)."

A Network Load Balanced cluster can handle many applications, so that
scalability can be achieved.

See the section of the above linked article titled "Load Balancing Web
Application Services".

I.O.W., a Network Load Balanced (NLB) cluster can provide
scalability to many web farms, but is not a web farm itself.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb870359.aspx

Hmm... definition of a web farm seems a little loose to me.

I've never heard of the distinction between a web cluster (homogenous
servers) and a web farm (hetrogenous servers) before now.

Other articles on technet seem to link NLB and a Web Farm quite tightly:-

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/commerceserver/bb608801.aspx

I accept that a Web Farm may not necessarily be a Load balanced set of
homogenous servers but I don't think it necessarily excludes it either. My
responses are conditioned (perhaps incorrectly) by Billy's other question
about session ID in this group. It seemed likely the intention was to use a
NLB and a set of Web servers as an alternative to a Web Garden.

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:
!> Other articles on technet seem to link NLB and a Web Farm quite tightly

ASP.NET and IIS are quite tightly tied. They aren't the same, though.
Do you see the analogy ?

That article you cite refers to the single log-on feature needed in
a Web farm environment, *when you are using Active Directory*.

That's why they talk about the *SupplierAD* sample site.
That's a very specific requirement for Commerce Server.

To sum up the argument, a *web farm* is composed of a number of different servers
which serve a number of applications by insuring that requests are properly identified
as belonging to the same application(s).

Otoh, Network Load Balancing_NLB is a network driver that *distributes the load*
for networked client/server applications across multiple cluster servers.

Network Load Balancing works by distributing client requests across a set of servers.

Network Load Balancing can be used to scale applications
that manage session state spanning multiple connections.

When its client affinity parameter setting is enabled, Network Load Balancing
directs all TCP connections from one client IP address to the same cluster host.

I.O.W., NLB is like a traffic cop, and Web farms are like a security cop that checks IDs, etc.

re:
!> I've never heard of the distinction between a web cluster
!> (homogenous servers) and a web farm (hetrogenous servers) before now.

The difference exists. Try asking Dino Esposito, if you don't believe me.
I fully trust his judgment regarding ASP.NET architecture.

 

[Anthony Jones]

re:
!> Other articles on technet seem to link NLB and a Web Farm quite tightly

ASP.NET and IIS are quite tightly tied. They aren't the same, though.
Do you see the analogy ?

That article you cite refers to the single log-on feature needed in
a Web farm environment, *when you are using Active Directory*.

That's why they talk about the *SupplierAD* sample site.
That's a very specific requirement for Commerce Server.

To sum up the argument, a *web farm* is composed of a number of different
servers
which serve a number of applications by insuring that requests are
properly identified
as belonging to the same application(s).

Otoh, Network Load Balancing_NLB is a network driver that *distributes the
load*
for networked client/server applications across multiple cluster servers.

Network Load Balancing works by distributing client requests across a set
of servers.

Network Load Balancing can be used to scale applications
that manage session state spanning multiple connections.

When its client affinity parameter setting is enabled, Network Load
Balancing
directs all TCP connections from one client IP address to the same cluster
host.

I.O.W., NLB is like a traffic cop, and Web farms are like a security cop
that checks IDs, etc.

re:
!> I've never heard of the distinction between a web cluster
!> (homogenous servers) and a web farm (hetrogenous servers) before now.

The difference exists. Try asking Dino Esposito, if you don't believe me.
I fully trust his judgment regarding ASP.NET architecture.

Oh don't doubt you, its just not a distinction I've across before, I'll try
to be more specific in future.