Load Balancing

[David]

Hi all,

I will shortly be starting on an application that I need to build in support
for load balancing / clustering from the outset. My apologies if this is not
the right group for this question...

Basically, it will be a C#/ASP.NET app. I have to develop it with
scalability in mind. This will include multiple IIS servers and multiple SQL
Servers.

Do I need to do anything special in my code in order to support both single
units and multiple units? Naturally, while developing, I will only be using
a single unit, using SQL Server Express (on my notebook) but I do need to
ensure that my app will scale up to multiple IIS and SQL Servers.

Any advice / pointers will be greatly appreciated.

--
Best regards,
Dave Colliver.
http://www.AshfieldFOCUS.com
~~
http://www.FOCUSPortals.com - Local franchises available

 

[Benjamin Fallar III]

yes, I suggest you use StateServer or SQL Server to manage your sessions and
make sure that your MAC in the web.config is consistent across you web farm.

 

[Joe Fawcett]

Or better still avoid the session object all together.
You will also have to decide about app level caching. You can just use one
cache per web server but if you want a shared cache I believe you'll need a
third-party add-on, or write your own.

 

[David]

Hi,

So, to use stateserver or multiple (clustered) SQL Servers / IIS boxes, does
it actually matter how I write my code to take advantage of them or will it
just work? (apart from handling sessions, caching)

Thanks for your help.
--
Best regards,
Dave Colliver.
http://www.AshfieldFOCUS.com
~~
http://www.FOCUSPortals.com - Local franchises available

 

[bruce barker]

yes it matters.

to use an out of proc session (state or sql), all objects stored in
session must be serializable. as you are using sqlexpress, develop with
sqlserver sessions as this is the best choice for high availablility. in
production you will want the sql state server in a cluster.

if you are writing unit tests (always a good idea), its best to have
serialization tests that check that serialization is working properly
for any object that may be stored in session.

-- bruce (sqlwork.com)

 

[David]

Hi,

Thanks for your help...

I tend not to use sessions much anyway unless I have to. I will bear it in
mind. This application will be electronic based (i.e. not for viewing by a
browser, but another application talking over http).

I need to look deeper into unit testing (I really want to do this for this
project). I will also investigate deeper into serialising objects.

--
Best regards,
Dave Colliver.
http://www.AshfieldFOCUS.com
~~
http://www.FOCUSPortals.com - Local franchises available