Load sharing / contingency

[Monsores]

Hi.
I have a Windows XP Pro workstation running a Visual FoxPro+Paradox application stored in a Windows 2003 Server. I installed a wired and a wireless network adapter in this workstation and gave it IP adresses in the same network (192.168.1.101 and 192.168.1.201. The server is 192.168.1.1). I tested each adapter separately and both are working well.
My intention was to have redundancy, so if one of the adapters stops working the other can continue the job, but this is not happening, and when I stop either the wired or the wireless network the application hangs up.
Do I have to configure something else to have redundancy? Is it also possible to have load sharing between the two adapters when everything is ok?

Thanks,
Monsores

 

[rvnguy]

Load balancing is a server type of application, normally ganged NIC's with the same IP with control software for balancing.

I do not believe that this is available natively in XP, but could be mistken. I also do not believe that just having 2 NIC's that XP will use them both, normally. There are bridges that you can configure, but you did not reference this.

See these links on Load Balancing.

http://www.isaserver.org/tutorials/Configuring_Network_Load_Balancing.html

http://www.networkcomputing.com/914/914r2.html

http://ntrg.cs.tcd.ie/undergrad/4ba2.01/group8/network_bottleneck.html

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[Monsores]

Thanks for your response, rvnguy. The links were very helpfull, specially the 2nd and the 3rd.
I'm migrating from a similar solution on Linux and thought it could be done without additional software. My main objective was fault tolerance, but load balance would be good too.
With the configuration I have, when one of the NICs is disabled the software hangs up, but if i kill its proccess the network is working normally and I can run it again. It's not perfect but solves my problem until I find a better solution.

 

[rvnguy]

Guess I don't understand...

I use a wired connection, have for a decade, without concerns of dropping or function.

If you have a hard connection, why do you require redundancy in a workstation?

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[Monsores]

I know it seems not necessary, but my client has a wired network with about 30 workstations and many problems in an old building, and after this client contracted me I had 5 days to make this network work well.
As the cabling is very far from the norms, together with electric cables in many points and without any protection, it would take more than it to be redone (there are other things to be done beyond the network).
I installed the wireless network but it's not perfect yet, because there is still a strange interference some times.
These 3 workstations are the critical ones, and the fault tolerance is necessary only while neither of the two networks are trustworthy.

Thanks once again