Can I host my site on 2 servers?

[sodani]

I heard that I could host my site on 2 servers, so that if one server goes down, there is a backup. Does anyone know how to do this?

[LifeinAsia]

One way is to use a load balancer. Generally, a load balancer is used to load the traffic balance between 2 or more servers, feeding incoming traffic to whichever server has the lowest load on it at that time. But you could probably configure things to send all the traffic to one server, then switch to the 2nd server if the first fails, although it would make more sense to just have both online all the time.

[observer 24 7]

I am actually hosting my site on two servers ... just to handle downtimes.

I use zoneedit.com DNS service.

Two ways:

1) Load balancing between the two servers. So half ur users go to each server.

Prob is you need to find a way to synch them.

2) What I use: Failover service (paid service .. around $12 a year) ... have primary server up with the latest ... have a failover server conffigured to handle requests when first server is down. Run some backup there on the second server... update from time to time.

Prob is the dns takes some time to detect downtime and switch. And sometimes if main server down for just for a reboot, secondary server will be active.

Hope this is helpful.

You can use two different hosting services.

[rebelde]

I use "DNS round robin" (Search for it.) It isn't perfect load balancing, but I highly recommend it.

[sodani]

This is very helpful. Thanks.

Would I then want to have the same e-mail aliases on both servers?