Direct Connections

You can connect directly to a specific node in the cluster by specifying an object path that resolves to the node's dedicated IP address. Direct connections offer several advantages:

• The connection will succeed unless WMI cannot establish a network connection to the node based on the namespace. Network Load Balancing does not have to be running on the node.
• You can configure the cluster IP address of the node without affecting your connection.
• You can target configuration operations more effectively.

Node-specific object paths have the form:

\\<name>\root\Microsoft_NLB

where <name> can be any name or IP address that resolves to the dedicated IP address of a node.