Using crossover cable causes load balancing not to work

Although cluster nodes may be able to ping each other, other devices on the same subnet may not be able to ping the cluster IP address, or may not be able to gain access to TCP services configured for load balancing.

This behavior can occur if the cluster nodes are connected by using a crossover cable between the cluster adapters.

Remove the crossover cable and attach the cluster adapters to the same network as the dedicated adapters.

Although you can use a crossover cable between "heartbeat" network adapters in Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS), this configuration does not work with a Windows NT Load Balancing Service (WLBS) or Network Load Balancing (NLB) cluster.

The cluster network adapter must be able to receive network traffic that is destined for the cluster's IP (virtual IP) address to load balance TCP services that are configured using port rules.

For additional information, see the following sources:

• The Deployment Notes for Windows NT Load Balancing Service
• The online documentation in Windows 2000 Advanced Server
• The following Microsoft Web site:
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727117.aspx