the load balancer receives a request, it must choose which real server will be used to serve the request. Options for making this decision include algorithms such as round-robin and least-used. The round-robin algorithm connects to each real server Chapter 27: Server Load-Balancing Technology in turn, regardless of the number of connections active on each server. The least-used algorithm keeps track of the number of connections active on each real server, and sends each new request to the server with the least number of active connections. In some cases, a user who connects more than once may need to connect to the same real server (this is called a sticky connection). A common example of this situation is a web site where you need to log in to view your account. If you were to log into one real server and then connect a minute later without logging out, the default behavior would most likely forward you to a different real server, which would not have the information from your original session. Server load balancers can be configured SO that a single user, once connected to a real server, will reconnect to the same real server. After a timeout period has elapsed, the user will again be sent to any of the available servers, according to the balancing algorithm in use. Configuring Server Load Balancing In this section, I will explain how to configure real servers, server farms, and virtual servers in IOS SLB and CSMs. IOS SLB Configuration relating to SLB is done with the ip slb command, or in SLB configura- tion mode. Real servers and virtual servers must be on different VLANs when using Real servers When using SLB, real servers are not configured independently, but rather, within server farms. Server farms Server farms are created in SLB with the ip slb serverfarm farm-name command. Here, I've created a server farm named GAD-FARM. The nat server command is a default and will be inserted by IOS: ip slb serverfarm GAD-FARM nat server Don't bother trying to come up with names for your servers in lower- case or a co