Randomized Load Sharing with Multiple Distribution Points.

[taugust04]

I did some searching and couldn't find much about this feature. Does it work to help to distribute downloads over multiple servers? Is anyone else using it? I'm just using standard SMB/HTTP file shares that I sync manually with CasperAdmin, not a JDS.

Thanks,

~Ted

[monosodium · Accepted solution]

We do not use JDS either and I just recently started using the load sharing feature. It seems to work okay overall, although I have noticed a few package deployments fail because of "package not found" errors. We are using Casper 9.7.

As far as functionality goes, it will randomly grab packages between different servers when deploying to multiple computers. It isn't true load-balancing in that sense, but works well enough when doing larger deployments. I will try to reply back to this thread if/when I find out what caused the fluke deployments to fail.

[monosodium · Accepted solution]

We do not use JDS either and I just recently started using the load sharing feature. It seems to work okay overall, although I have noticed a few package deployments fail because of "package not found" errors. We are using Casper 9.7.

As far as functionality goes, it will randomly grab packages between different servers when deploying to multiple computers. It isn't true load-balancing in that sense, but works well enough when doing larger deployments. I will try to reply back to this thread if/when I find out what caused the fluke deployments to fail.

[cshepp11 · Accepted solution]

@taugust04 I use that feature and it works well. I have an SMB DP with a synced SMB DP "failover". I'd suggest setting up a crontab to sync the 2, otherwise you'll get confused fast and/or forget to replicate the 2 DP's. By the way, yes, it works to distribute downloads over multiple DP's.

[taugust04]

Thanks for the replies @cshepp and @monosodium . I'm going to enable the feature now and report back with my findings.

[taugust04]

Is this used for Casper Imaging? Just started imaging a dozen computers, all of them are connecting to and mounting the same distribution point on the primary server - doesn't seem to be distributing anything randomly as all my other servers have zero traffic. The imaging auto-run doesn't specify a specific distribution server, just default settings. Am I missing something, or is this used just for post-imaging file distribution?

All the secondary distribution servers are running 10.10.5 server, using SMB and HTTP. I have three secondary servers configured with the primary/master for a total of four.

Thanks,

~Ted

[bentoms]

@taugust04 I think it's only for policies, at least that seems to be the case that I've seen.

The network segments primary DP seems to be used.