Windows Server 2008
Hi, I'm currently doing my MCITP. I'm a bit confused on some things. Can someone please tell me the real difference between these 3 : 1. Fault Tolerance 2. Load Balancing 3. High Availability Thank you in advance.
October 27th, 2012 7:11am

If you are referring Hyper-V, please read following articles http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768521(v=bts.10).aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/hh127064.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831410.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725691.aspx ThanksRegards, Santosh I do not represent the organisation I work for, all the opinions expressed here are my own. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights. Whenever you see a helpful reply, click on Vote As Helpful & click on Mark As Answer if a post answers your question.
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October 27th, 2012 2:02pm

Here's an attempt to help you better understand the terms Fault Tolerance - This is a system's ability to withstand one or more failures whilst still able to function in its role. For example a server may have multiple power supplies. If one of the power supplies fails the server still gets power from the others. In this case you would say the server had a Fault Tolerant power supply. Or another term commonly used is to say there is Redundancy in the power supply. Redundancy means there are more (and sometimes idle hence the term redundant) power supplies than are needed in normal operation when everything is working. It is this Redundancy which gives it Fault Tolerance. Load Balancing - This is the distribution of workload accross different systems. For example a web site is likely to be hosted on multiple web servers. Different mechanisms are available to then distribute the requests which come to that website to one of the servers. Depending on the mechanism this could be to the one with the least amount of current connections etc. It can also be used to only direct traffic servers which are online and not offline so you could say it also offered some Fault Tolerance. Not all Load Balancing technologies offer Fault Tolerance however. For example a RAID 0 disk array Load Balances the workload accross all disks in the array but if one disk fails the entire array goes down. High Availability - This is a general term used to describe a system which must be running (i.e. available) more of the time than you would consider a normal system to be. The exact time you would consider normal and high are subjective but it just means it is relatively more available than normal. In practical terms Fault Tolerant and in some cases Load Balancing technologies are likely to be used in order to make a system Highly Available. So this term usually means, in some sense, the use of these technologies although not exclusively. (Fault Tolerance nearly always makes a system more available but some Load Balancing technologies do not as described above). Hope this helps a bit and good luck with the exams Best Regards Joe Dunn MCITP:EA, MCSE
October 27th, 2012 2:54pm

Hi Joe Dunn, Thank you for a clear explanation.
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October 31st, 2012 10:02pm

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