DNS Round Robin config for Citrix Storefront or VMware View Connection/ Security servers

This article explains the steps to configure DNS Round Robin to load balance end-user connections among VMware Horizon View connection or  Security or Citrix Storefront servers. Even though DNS Round Robin is not a true load balancing solution, it works as a dumb load balancer if you are not ready to spend on expensive load balancers like F5, Citrix Netscaler etc…

An an alternative for DNS Round Robin is low-cost KEMP Load Balancers. I think the price for KEMP VLM 100 Load Balancer is a couple of thousand dollars and these are intelligent enough.

OK, let me start with the steps to configure DNS Round Robin.

1.       First, make sure that your Windows DNS is enabled with Round Robin option,. To do that, go to DNS console, select Domain name- right click for properties.

2.       Then make sure that “Enable Round Robin” checkbox is ticked

3.       Then decide which two storefront / VMware Horizon View connection servers you want to load balance and a load-balanced FQDN (hostname). In this example, I am taking the following two servers/ Ips

Citrix1.test.local - 10.2.0.10

Citrix2.test.local – 10.2.0.11

Loadbalancer.test.local – Load balanced host name for Storefront servers or VMware View connection servers

4.       Then create 2x A records in DNS with same name. A records will look like this

Loadbalancer.test.local- 10.2.0.10

Loadbalancer.test.local - 10.2.0.11

5.       That’s it. You are done with the DNS Round Robin load balancing configuration.

6.       To verify, just nslookup from server and makes sure that output is something like below.

> Loadbalancer

Server:  DC01. test.local

Address:  10.2.0.8

Name:    Loadbalancer.test.local

Addresses:  10.2.0.10

                10.2.0.11

7.       Then if its Citrix Storefront servers, login to Storefront server MMC, navigate to Server Group and click on change Base URL to update Storefront URL with load-balanced hostname (FQDN). In this case, it’s Loadbalancer.test.local

This step automatically updates “Stores” and “Receiver for web”

8.       If it’s VMware Horizon Horizon View environment and you need to load balance Connection or security servers, Just start using new DNS round Robin hostname on client machines to connect to the View desktops. In this case, it’s Loadbalancer.test.local.

Hope this article around DNS load balancing solution helps you.

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