To improve performance even more, you can install multiple network interface boards in a server. This article explains how each solution works. To help you decide which solution is best for your company's network, this article also lists the hardware requirements and performance issues associated with each solution. For example, when not properly configured, load balancing can actually reduce performance. With load balancing, the server can send packets through multiple network interface boards connected to the same segment, rather than using only one network interface board, which can become a bottleneck.
Load balancing is an outbound service, handling only packets being sent from the server.
Incoming packets still determine their route based on the server's responses to workstations' Get Nearest Server requests. Although incoming packets are not load balanced, the server's responses to these requests are. The server uses this routing table to ensure that the network load is distributed among the network interface boards. The first time the server needs to send a packet using the routing table, the server sends this packet through the first network interface board listed in this routing table. The server then sends the second packet through the second network interface board, the third packet through the third network interface board, and so on.