ENSURE WEB IS UP ALL THE TIME. PLZ READ

[smash123]

I'm using OSC to run my online business. I want to ensure my web won't goes down again. I have a bad experience with a hosting company that took like 8 hours everyday to START look at my server. My web down 12 hours per day, 3 days in roll. Then found out hardware failure. Looks like to me this hosting company is one man band. So, just start switching to hosting with vps account I guess bigger company will have people really monitoring 24 hours. They told me if my server crash they will fix right away. Not sure if this is true yet as my previous hosting saying the same thing too. So this time I want to play save with my total control on switching server idea if possible. Let's say if I get one more vps account for backup. When my first vps is down, can I run my web by using the other vps right away? If not, what do you suggest? How can I switch server if my orginal server is down? I know I can use domain forwarding but email won't work this way. Thank you.

[♥Vger]

It can be done, but the best way to do it would be if you had your own name servers with ns1 and ns2 on one server and ns3 and ns4 on another. Then if ns1 and 2 were unavailable ns3 and ns4 would be automatically looked for.

 

The other way is to look for a server that uses hardware raid, so if one hard disk goes down it automatically switches to the other hard disk which has complete copies of all files.

 

Vger

[smash123]

Vger: Thank you for your reply. Your first suggestion sounds good. It is just right for me as I have 2 dedicated servers with name server. You memtioned if ns1 and ns2 failed, the web will be pull from ns3 and ns4. How about the emails. Will they works normal while running on ns3 and ns4? Also, want to know how can I keep the mysql the same as ns1? Is there any program can do mirroring between two db? thanks

[♥Vger]

You'd have to make sure that your seperate vds accounts use different ns addresses e.g. on one it uses ns1 and ns2, and on the other it uses ns3 and ns4. Normally they are set up with different domains and both use ns1 and ns2 with seperate ip addresses. You'd need to talk to the hosting company about this.

 

You'd also need to make sure that when your domain is pointed that it points to all four ns addresses and not just two (which is what normally happens).

 

For the db side of things to work you'd either need the database to be:

1. On a different server, and then you could use the one database for both sites (but your site would still go down if the db server went down).

2. Individual databases on each vds account. ns3 and 4 would only come into play if ns1 and 2 were down, so you'd have to manually update the database for ns1 and2 if any orders occurred during the outage of the main site.

 

Your question about mirroring I answered in the earlier post e.g. look for a host that provides dual hard disks on each server with disk 1 using Hardware RAID to copy all files to Disk2.

 

Of course you could just find a web host whose servers don't keep falling over. A much easier solution.

 

Vger

[smash123]

Thank you. I think I will go to #2 and write some query to syn. both sites in every 10 mins. So my web is always up. I'm afraid if I don't watch my web then it will go down somehow on the db. Thank again for your valuable infromation!

 

You'd have to make sure that your seperate vds accounts use different ns addresses e.g. on one it uses ns1 and ns2, and on the other it uses ns3 and ns4. Normally they are set up with different domains and both use ns1 and ns2 with seperate ip addresses. You'd need to talk to the hosting company about this.

 

You'd also need to make sure that when your domain is pointed that it points to all four ns addresses and not just two (which is what normally happens).

 

For the db side of things to work you'd either need the database to be:

1. On a different server, and then you could use the one database for both sites (but your site would still go down if the db server went down).

2. Individual databases on each vds account. ns3 and 4 would only come into play if ns1 and 2 were down, so you'd have to manually update the database for ns1 and2 if any orders occurred during the outage of the main site.

 

Your question about mirroring I answered in the earlier post e.g. look for a host that provides dual hard disks on each server with disk 1 using Hardware RAID to copy all files to Disk2.

 

Of course you could just find a web host whose servers don't keep falling over. A much easier solution.

 

Vger

[Guest]

a lot can happen in 10 minutes . . .

[Guest]

You'd have to make sure that your seperate vds accounts use different ns addresses e.g. on one it uses ns1 and ns2, and on the other it uses ns3 and ns4. Normally they are set up with different domains and both use ns1 and ns2 with seperate ip addresses. You'd need to talk to the hosting company about this.

 

You'd also need to make sure that when your domain is pointed that it points to all four ns addresses and not just two (which is what normally happens).

 

For the db side of things to work you'd either need the database to be:

1. On a different server, and then you could use the one database for both sites (but your site would still go down if the db server went down).

2. Individual databases on each vds account. ns3 and 4 would only come into play if ns1 and 2 were down, so you'd have to manually update the database for ns1 and2 if any orders occurred during the outage of the main site.

 

Your question about mirroring I answered in the earlier post e.g. look for a host that provides dual hard disks on each server with disk 1 using Hardware RAID to copy all files to Disk2.

 

Of course you could just find a web host whose servers don't keep falling over. A much easier solution.

 

Vger

 

 

Thank you Vger...

You really make 'expertise' read like a simple cookbook with pictures!

This is Exactly something we have needed and been agonizing over how to ensure...

Many thanks! :thumbsup: