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Mirrored Server Help

94MB.com

94MB.com

New Member
Hi,

I was wondering if someone here can give me some help...

I have a client that currently has a large ecommerce website run of a single cpanel dedicated server. Their business is now expanding and any server downtime would now be very costly.

They now asked me if it is possible to have their website on two servers in different datacenters, if one goes down, the other will still be online. They require any changes that are made to the sites files to take affect on both servers instantly. This client has a decent monthly budget to work with.

Can anyone tell me how this can be done? I was told that clustering the servers could work, but how would I do this and can anyone recommend any decent dedicated server providers.

Many Thanks
Andrew
94MB.com Powerful Online Solutions
 
SoftLayer would be what I suggest. If he has a really decent budget Rackspace from what I hear is good :)

As far as mirroring I have no idea :p
 
The backups are not the problem, the problem is that servers have downtime, my client wants to run the site on two servers in different locations. Then if one of the servers goes down, the site will still be online and the chance that they both go down at the same time (causing the website to go down) is very unlikely giving 99.9999% uptime rather than just 99.9%.

I just want to know how I can setup the two servers so that if someone trys to access the site and one of the servers is down, the domain automaticaly shows the site off the other server. How can I do this?

I would probably use hivelocity for one of the servers and I am looking for another good company to rent the other server from based in a different location.

Any help will be much appreciated, thank you in advanced.

Regards
Andrew
94MB.com Powerful Online Solutions
 
Softlayer would be a good bet (softlayers own portal DNS control is very good), as would Rackspace as Tracker says.

But if they have grown that big 4 servers would be their best bet, 2 web 2 database.

Implimenting and managing it is a different issue :wink2:
 
That's the issue I'm working on right now except both servers are in the same location, but different networks. The issue I'm coming into is database replication... Site replication is easier because the actual web page doesn't change often, but the database does. Secondary servers are set up to receive from a primary server and the secondary usually doesn't pick up the slack automatically if a primary goes down (in the case of DNS domain controllers). Disk mirroring (in the same server) however does automatically sync both ways... The idea (in my case) is that when a primary goes down it then becomes the secondary so data on the secondary isn't overwritten when old versions of the primary come online.

I'm not an expert in this area, just some things I'm running into and trying to research/fix so someone correct me if I'm wrong with anything I say.

Now in your case you want to replicate in two different locations, I do think it can be done just have to figure out how to sync an active database without the primary overwriting the secondary...

I use rsync and msdeploy for IIS websites and data. My next project is to find how to replicate MySQL databases real time without using dumps.
 
Mysql has a clustering module so that you can run in master/slave mode or I even believe master/master. Google "mysql cluster" for that - it's done all in their config.

If all the changing data is contained in the databases, then your only real concern is mysql clustering. If they have to be geographically seperated (say 2 different cities), then you'll need a Tier 1 provider like Peer1 that can provide high speed/low latency traffic between them. Most Tier 1 providers provide that.

If the data changes on the front end web site as well (uploading files, that sort of thing), then it's messier - a distributed/global file system would be needed.

The Peer1 solution is great - might be pricey - but I use them and recommend them.

What I would do is this.

1. Use Peer1 (or equivalent - they guarantee < 35ms latency and 100% packet deliver in-network) and arrange for servers in 2 datacenters.
2. I would use 6 servers - 1 proxy, 1 cPanel box, and 1 mysql box.
3. Cluster the mysql together and test that first.
4. Set up the proxies to first attempt to serve data from the local box. If it fails, failover to the secondard (apache, mod_backhand is one way)
5. Set up the cpanel boxes and use one as master, the other as slave. Push from master to slave when site updates are done (rsync). If the master fails, change the other to master - use dns or whatever to manage this.
6. Set up dns so that the web site round robins between the 2 proxy IPs.

It's a medium cost solution relative to other HA/Failover solutions, but it really works well.

It really comes down to customer need, how much will they pay and time :)
 
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