DCOM Load Balancing

[Greg Goldman]

Hello,

I'm trying to load balance two application servers (middle-tier) running
DCOM and MTS with the Foundry ServerIron switch (or any other solution for
Windows NT 4.0).
So far, I could only manage the failover but not load balancing.

Here is what happens:
After a client activates an object on the App. Server, all future activations
from that client go to the same computer. The second client will activate
an object on a different machine, but all the subsequent calls from the second
client will go to the second server and so on.

I use stateless DCOM objects created with VB 6.0.
The OS is Windows NT 4.0 (cannot use Win 2000 yet)
The same behavior occurs with or without MTS.

It seems that a DCOM session never expires, and there is a some type of a
persistent hidden connection between the client and the server!

Can anyone explain what is going on and offer a solution?
I know that Win2K AppCenter is supposed to fix that, but as I mentioned earlier,
I can't use Win2K yet.


I will greatly appreciate any help,

Greg

From what I remember about DCOM, there +is+ actually a persistent connection
established when you create on object on a remote machine.

Note, I don't believe you get a "seperate" connection for each object, just
that a connection is created for DCOM to manage event notification, etc.

Your best bet. Roll your own TCPIP comm handling and drop DCOM. It's way too
much of a PITA to bother with.




"Greg Goldman" <ggol5@allstate.com> wrote in message
news:3a1311c5@news.devx.com...
>
> Hello,
>
> I'm trying to load balance two application servers (middle-tier) running
> DCOM and MTS with the Foundry ServerIron switch (or any other solution for
> Windows NT 4.0).
> So far, I could only manage the failover but not load balancing.
>
> Here is what happens:
> After a client activates an object on the App. Server, all future
activations
> from that client go to the same computer. The second client will activate
> an object on a different machine, but all the subsequent calls from the
second
> client will go to the second server and so on.
>
> I use stateless DCOM objects created with VB 6.0.
> The OS is Windows NT 4.0 (cannot use Win 2000 yet)
> The same behavior occurs with or without MTS.
>
> It seems that a DCOM session never expires, and there is a some type of a
> persistent hidden connection between the client and the server!
>
> Can anyone explain what is going on and offer a solution?
> I know that Win2K AppCenter is supposed to fix that, but as I mentioned
earlier,
> I can't use Win2K yet.
>
>
> I will greatly appreciate any help,
>
> Greg