Q: What is the difference between the state and the effective state of a Load Balancing Virtual Server?

A: The State is the state of the Virtual Server derived from the services that are bound to the Virtual Server. However, the Effective state is a state derived from the combination of the services that are bound and the backup Virtual Server that is defined under the advanced tab of the Virtual server.

 

More Information

A backup Virtual Server can be configured for a Virtual Server as shown in the screen shot below:

With this backup Server bound and with all the services in a Down state, the effective state of the Virtual Server still remains Up. This just means that if a user tries to connect to the Virtual Server, he still gets a page. You can see this in the screen shots below:




In such a case, if the Effective State of the Backup Virtual Server goes down, the effective state of the Primary Virtual Server is down, as well.