Can requests for page parts be coerced to the same server in a Web Farm?

[Paul Emory Sullivan]

I anticipate a problem that may occur when we deploy our reports on
web farms. We have reports that generate both tabular and graphic
output in a single Recordset pass. Each report page request writes a
temporary graph GIF. Subsequently, another request for the GIF is
issued due to an IMG tag on the report page:
<IMG SRC="IMG.asp?graph123.gif">
IMG.asp responds with the GIF that was generated by the report page
request.

The problem I anticipate is that requests for GIF files may be
directed to different servers on the web farm than the server on which
the GIF is written, resulting in a "File not found" error from
IMG.asp. It could be solved by having IMG.asp generate the GIF by
reissuing the query but this would double SQL Server's workload.

Is this a problem? Does it depend on the type of web farm and/or web
farm configuration? Is there a work around that can coerce requests
for the graph GIFs back to the same server?

Thanks in for any insights,
Paul Sullivan

 

[Paul Emory Sullivan]

An additional note by the original poster:

I realize that using a network drive to store the GIF
would be effective, but this is not an option because
network share access will be disabled on the web farm for
security reasons.

Paul