Hardware load balancing is supported for the server roles specified in this section. Software-based network load balancing, including Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB), is not supported for any servers running Office Communications Server.
Load balancers must be configured for the ports that are used by any applications that run on the servers behind the load balancers.
For details about load balancer requirements and configuring load balancing, see Planning Load Balancingin the Planning and Architecture documentation.
Office Communications Server
The following Office Communications Server configurations support hardware load balancing:
- Enterprise Edition servers in a pool, consolidated
configuration.
- Enterprise Edition servers in a pool, expanded configuration
(Web Components Servers and Front End Servers only).
Note:A single load balancer can be used for both, or the Web Components Server and the Front End Server can each have a separate hardware load balancer. - Conferencing servers, expanded configuration.
- Edge Servers, depending on configuration. For details, see
Perimeter
Network Topologies for Office Communications Server 2007 R2.
- Directors, only in Enterprise Edition topologies.
Communicator Web Access
Hardware load balancing is supported and required for the following configuration:
- Two or more Communicator Web Access servers that support the
same types of users (internal only, external only, or both internal
and external)