Sharepoint 2010 Load Balance Configuration

Happy new year guys. Finally I got out some time to post this. I wanted to post this exercise in December itself. Anyways it is better to be late than never.

                   Sharepoint has single server installations and multiple server installations. In medium or large farms there are 3 tiers in Sharepoint Farm.

Database Server

Application Server and

Web Front End Server (WFE)

As the number of users for Sharepoint increase we should add more WFE servers to the farm as the user requests are handled by the WFE server. Multiple WFE servers in the farm help to distribute the load. In order to achieve this we would have to load balance the WFE servers. The below post would be a detailed configuration on how to do this. 

At a higher level we would be doing the following steps as a part of this exercise

I) Adding a WFE server to the Sharepoint Farm.

II) Enable the Network Load Balancing feature and configuring the cluster

III) DNS entry for the cluster

I) Adding a WFE server to the Sharepoint Farm.

We are beginning this exercise assuming that one WFE is already existing in the farm.

1) I am installing Sharepoint in another WFE and connecting it to the existing farm. Click Next.

2) Enter the database server (Click Retrieve Database Names) and the database name

3) Enter the passphrase and click Next.

4) Click the Advanced Settings and choose Use this machine to host the web site. Click OK.

5) Click Finish

II) Enable the Network Load Balancing feature and configuring the cluster

1) Now we will proceed with Network Load Balancing installation in the two WFE (web front end) SharePoint servers.

2) We will configure NLB and create a cluster. Start -> Administrative Tools -> Network Load Balancing Manager

3) Right-click Network Balancing and select New Cluster.

4) Connect to one host and add the cluster IP address.

5) Select Multicast. By default this is Unicast.

6) We can define the port rule, but I left it as default.

7) Add the second WFE server to the cluster.

8) Enter the second host name that needs to be part of the new cluster.

9) Set the priority to be 2

10) Click Next,and complete the configuration.    

                                             

III) DNS entry for the cluster

1) Create an entry in DNS for the cluster.

                                 

2) Set the binding for the site.

3) Modify Alternate Access Mapping for the default site collection from http://xxxxxwfe1 to http://cluster.

The configurations has completed, We can access our site with URL http://cluster.

Reset Sharepoint 2010 Farm Passphrase

Farm Passphrase 

Farm passphrase is a new security feature in SharePoint 2010. Similar to a password, it is created as part of the initial creation of a SharePoint farm. The passphrase is created during psconfig step of SharePoint installation. It is required when we have to add additional servers to the farm. There are times when farm administrators misplace or forget the passphrase.

Resetting Farm Passphrase for Sharepoint 2010

1) Login to the Sharepoint server with your Farm Account(should have permission to Sharepoint Config DB). Start the Sharepoint 2010 Management Shell and Run As Administrator

2) $passphrase = ConvertTo-SecureString -asPlainText –Force

3) On the prompt, enter your new Passphrase(Please make sure you write it down, else you wouldn’t be reading this now  :-))

4) Set-SPPassPhrase -PassPhrase $passphrase –Confirm

5) You have to confirm your new passphrase by entering it again

6) Press “Y” .Now your passphrase have been reset