Network load balancing is an excellent feature of the Microsoft Server Family operating systems. It allows the setup to make use of a single IP address to balance the load between two or more machine. In this article I’ll explain step by step on how to setup network load balancing on Windows Server 2003 using a single network adapter. For testing whether this configuration works I’ve setup IIS (Internet Information Services) but testing can also be done some other way.

The basic requirements for setting up Network Load Balancing:-

• Two or more servers running the same service (e.g. IIS)
• Both the servers should have a Windows Server Operating System installed.
• IIS should be installed and running on both the servers.
• The IP addresses for both the servers should be static i.e. manually assigned (DHCP should not be used)Continue Reading…