SOLVED

Is it possible to do load balancing in a Standard Edition deployment?

Copper Contributor

I currently have a Standard Edition deployment with 1 front end and 1 edge server. (I inherited this deployment). I want to do load balancing by adding a second front end. Is this possible in a Standard Edition deployment or do I have to stand up Enterprise Edition and add an additional edge server? Currently the SQL database is collocated on the front end along with the mediation server. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

5 Replies
best response confirmed by Rob Scott (Copper Contributor)
Solution

Hi Rob,

 

When using a Standard edition load balancing does nothing. If you want to load balance users between servers you will need to have enterpise edition with the minimal 3 front end servers. your SQL Database will be on separate servers.

 

For the Edge role you can create a new pool with 2 servers (this works in standard and enterprise edition) The pool can be a load balancer. 

Thanks Erwin. This confirms what I've been reading.

There is a lot of misunderstanding around this topic. In general, depending on your requirements you can do HA or DR.

 

In general, for midsize customer we have a reference architecture described here

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398095(v=ocs.15).aspx

 

In general, if HA is NOT a requirement you could pair two STD in the same DC for failover. It's not HA in the essence of the word but could fulfil the requirement.

 

If HA (so POOL high avaibility is a requirement) than indeed as Erwin mentioned you need Enterprise Edition.

A little note on this setup, failover needs to be done by administrator manually.

Powershell is your friend here :) But yes, a manual failover is the standard approach.

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Rob Scott (Copper Contributor)
Solution

Hi Rob,

 

When using a Standard edition load balancing does nothing. If you want to load balance users between servers you will need to have enterpise edition with the minimal 3 front end servers. your SQL Database will be on separate servers.

 

For the Edge role you can create a new pool with 2 servers (this works in standard and enterprise edition) The pool can be a load balancer. 

View solution in original post