A RADIUS server group takes advantage of the load-balancing capabilities of NPS and can be used to provide redundancy. You can configure RADIUS server groups within the Network Policy Server management console by selecting New from the Remote RADIUS Server Groups context menu.
Creating a new RADIUS server group invokes the New Remote RADIUS Server Group dialog box, as shown in Figure 3-14.
FIGURE 3-14 Adding a new remote RADIUS server group.
When you’re presented with the dialog box in Figure 3-14, you enter the group name and click Add to add RADIUS servers. This presents the Add RADIUS Server dialog box shown in Figure 3-15.
FIGURE 3-15 Adding a RADIUS server to the server group.
The Authentication/Accounting tab, shown in Figure 3-16, enables you to set such things as the shared secret and port to use for authentication and accounting requests.
FIGURE 3-16 The Authentication/Accounting tab contains items related to the actual authentication and
accounting requests for RADIUS.
The Load Balancing tab, shown in Figure 3-17, enables you to set priority and overall behavior for sharing the load among the servers. For example, setting a priority of 1 for multiple servers enables those servers to share load, but if you have a server that’s busier than others, its priority can be lowered accordingly so that it receives fewer RADIUS requests. Alternately, if servers share the same priority, the Weight value can be used to determine the load-sharing behavior.
FIGURE 3-17 The Load Balancing configuration for a RADIUS server group.
