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I have a machine (Windows Server 2008 R2) with 5 NIC each of them is 1Gbit.

I am running a SQL server on this machine that is using only 1 NIC. Due to heavy traffic we have, the SQL Server NIC is going as high as 99% usage so all traffic to this SQL is being delayed, and this slows down ALL our systems.

Since we have 4 more free NIC, each of a Gbit, I was wondering if its possible to create a NLB (network load balancer) between all the 5, so they will all work and split the traffic between them.

Anything info will help!

m0fo
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  • I think you can enable [Teaming](http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2010/09/03/using-the-multiple-nics-of-your-file-server-running-windows-server-2008-and-2008-r2.aspx) on the NIC – rene Jul 28 '13 at 11:36

1 Answers1

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There are several ways to do this and are all relatively easy. A VERY simple solution is to simply bind mssql to all 5 interfaces and give all interfaces a different network address. You can then configure some clients to point to one interface, others to the next etc. Depending on your network infrastructure you can also "bond" your network interfaces together so that they act like 1 interface on the OS. If you have a single switch and all of the interfaces are plugged into the single switch then bonding is an option. If they are plugged into two different switches then your switches will have to support lacp or something similar. You can also look at using a load balancer infront of your sql server. This could be problematic depending on your database, replication, sticky sessions etc.

If I were doing this I would start down the bonding path.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2010/09/03/using-the-multiple-nics-of-your-file-server-running-windows-server-2008-and-2008-r2.aspx

dtorgo
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