When integrated network load balancing (NLB) is applied on Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG) servers deployed in an array, you can monitor and manage the array members in the Web Monitor.

The following procedures describe:

Monitoring the state of load balanced array members

To access the Web Monitor on array members, obtain the credentials for the administrator account of the local server, and input them each time you access the Web Monitor. Note that you must repeat the selected action for each array member. Then, monitor the load balanced servers as described in the following procedure:

To monitor the state of load balanced nodes

  1. In the Forefront UAG Management console, click the Admin menu, and then click Web Monitor.

  2. In Web Monitor, click Current Status in the Load Balancing Monitor node.

    One of the following states will be displayed for each array member:

    • Converged─The array member is acting as a load balanced server.

    • Draining─The array member is in the process of going offline. After draining completes, current connections to the server will be handled by another load balanced server without interruption.

      Note the following:

      • Servers that are completely drained continue to show a status of Draining.

    • Stopped─The array member is not acting as a load balanced server.

    • Suspended─The array member is not acting as a load balanced server. After an array member restarts, it remains in a suspended status.

    • Offline─There is no connection to the array member server, and it is not participating in load balancing. Note that when polling for NLB, unavailable array members that are not drained are set as offline. An offline node that becomes available does not join the load balanced server set automatically; you must explicitly select the Resume action for the server.

    • Converging─The convergence process occurs when a node is in transition from Offline to Converged. In addition, when the polling mechanism senses that a node is offline, the remaining array nodes converge to cover for the offline node.

Managing load balanced array members

To manage load balanced nodes

  1. In the Forefront UAG Management console, click the Admin menu, and then click Web Monitor.

  2. In the Web Monitor, click Current Status in the Load Balancing Monitor node.

  3. In the details pane, select the array server you want to manage, and then in the Action drop-down menu, select one of the following:

    • Start─To specify that an array node should starting acting as a load balanced server.

    • Stop─To specify that the array node should stop acting as a load balanced server.

    • Drain Stop─To start draining the server. Before taking a server in a load-balanced array offline, you should drain it. When draining, the server will not accept new connections, but will wait until current endpoint connections are completed, before ending its participation in the load-balancing process.

    • Suspend─To specify that the array member should stop acting as a load balanced node.

    • Resume─To specify that the array member should resume activity as a load balanced node.

    • Cancel─To cancel a drain or resume action in process.