How do I provide Reliable Hosting!??

[cdrsft]

I have one static IP address and one dedicated 2000 Server box.
The box is the primary DNS server as well as the host for websites and emails.

However, when the connection goes down or power goes out, then nothing is available to my customers.

I got a second location with a second IP and dedicated box. I want to have it "take over" when the primary machine goes down (which is not often). It should just be there for emergency cases.

Question: How do I set it up so that it takes over when the other box goes down? I dont want it to be a "relay" machine, because that doesnt provide a connection for users to get their emails etc when the primary server is down, or an up to date copy of their websites etc.

Could I set it up as the secondary DNS server which would specify itself as the mail and webserver so that if users needed to connect, they could get the services they needed?

Any experienced webmaster's input appreciated.

 

[Fiveohhh]

I don't know that much about webhosting, but I think it would be pretty tough to do something like that, cause if you lose power or a connection whats going to tell another PC where to look for a different site...Unless you had your name servers off site that you could have point to another place. not to mention the constant traffic between the two to keep them identical. I'd get a nice battery backup and generator, and than the only way your servers not going to be accesable is if the connection goes down... I'm speaking all in theory though since I've never done any of this stuff.

 

[Confused]

Get at least 2 internet connections.

Get a HUGE UPS and generator.

Pray.


Confused

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

The easiest way to provide reliable hosting is to use a service that's already setup to do web hosting... There are a lot of factors to consider, and the entry price for truly reliable web hosting is pretty steep.

 

[MysticLlama]

What you want to do is failover / load balancing.

This isn't an easy or cheap thing to do, especially multi-location.

You could do round-robin DNS, which means that the requests will be sent between both locations, but then if one goes down, half the requests will be dropped. Better then being completely down I guess, but not a very good way to do it.

I just installed a Big-IP system for our webservers at work, but that was a $6800 piece of software.

Your best bet is to find a hosting company that you can resell hosting through, or colo your server in someone's NOC that already has redundant power and connectivity.

I suppose you *might* be able to pull something off by having the primary DNS server on the first connection, and if it goes down then the secondary could be pointing to the failover IP, but that's really sloppy and there are a lot of other factors to consider. You have to think about client machines caching DNS data, clients that request from the secondary DNS server before the primary (it happens), and a lot of other weird bugs that could come up.

If you have multiple clients you're doing this for, you should be bringing in enough money to do the hosted server / colo option. If not, you're not charging enough.

 

[Alptraum]

I am going to agree with MysticLlama on this. Go with a co-located server someplace that is already set up.

For the power outages you can take care of this semi cheaply by getting a big enough UPS for your system, assuming you are not talking about long term outages. Then your only option is a generator.

For your network outages you can get a redundant line. Either from the same provider that supplies your current one or (and this is a better option sometimes) from a totally different ISP.

As far as multi site rollover goes the only really decent ways to do it are very expensive ways.

Co-locating is frequently the best option for this sort of thing for smaller operators.

 

[doug]

Are your users using you as their DNS servers? If they are then you might be able to do something with your second location as another DNS server. If not then the client machines aren't going to know to connect to your alternate IP address.