dns load distribution issue

[aschwartz71]

Hi.

I have an odd situation. I have a need to balance out 3 different application servers that we are installing, so that when a client connects, they connect to a VIP, and then the VIP balances their connections (Round robin works) to the 3 servers.
I tried a piece of hardware from coyote point, and it stunk. F5 is far too expensive for this place, so I am resorting to the free DNS load balancing. I created an A record for each of the servers, and when you ping the fqdn from different servers, it connects to different servers, which is what I was hoping for. The only issue is this. I need to set a Virtual IP for this, so that instead of connecting to application.domain.com, they can connect to 172.16.0.85, which would be the virtual IP of the servers. How can I accomplish this using DNS? The application only allows me to connect to an IP address, rather than the dns name, which is why I need to do this.

If I put a line in the hosts file, it resolves the VIP to the fqdn, which points to the address which is not used, since the VIP is technically not in use. SO that doesnt work.

 

[aschwartz71]

I could use NLB I guess, but I was hoping not to if possible..

 

[lgarner]

There are a variety of actual load balancers, ranging from free to expensive. I'd go with something like the somewhat-misnamed Linux Virtual Server.

The problem with what you're trying to do is that DNS isn't consulted if you already have the IP address.