master_windu
asked on
Server Load Balancing and Redundancy Options?
Hello Experts
Our Current Setup:
4 sql based webservers. 2 at one core site, the other 2 at a second core site that are only accessed internally by end users.
Users at the remote sites have a shortcut to 1 of these 4 servers (depending where they are geographically to the core sites)
If 1 server goes down, we have to scramble to redirect the users who's shortcut was pointing to that server.
What we are lookin for:
To load balance and provide redundancy among these 4 servers.
All users would possibly have the same shortcut on their desktop
If 1 server dies, users would be unaware as they would be automatically directed to the one of the other functioning servers.
Likewise, if 1 core site does down, users at the remote sites would still be able to access the 2 functioning servers in the other core site.
Is this possible? If so, how? Hardware, or Software solution?
I looked at round-robin DNS.
This can help with balancing requests among the 4 servers but provides no redundancy incase 1 server dies.
I looked at Server 2003 Network Load Balancing feature but it seems that all servers involved need to be in the same subnet.
I briefly looked at a hardware product called BIGIP by F5, but have no idea if this is what I would need, or if this is overkill.
Our current envirnonment is Windows 2000 Server sp4 and SQL 2000 sp3
Thanks
Our Current Setup:
4 sql based webservers. 2 at one core site, the other 2 at a second core site that are only accessed internally by end users.
Users at the remote sites have a shortcut to 1 of these 4 servers (depending where they are geographically to the core sites)
If 1 server goes down, we have to scramble to redirect the users who's shortcut was pointing to that server.
What we are lookin for:
To load balance and provide redundancy among these 4 servers.
All users would possibly have the same shortcut on their desktop
If 1 server dies, users would be unaware as they would be automatically directed to the one of the other functioning servers.
Likewise, if 1 core site does down, users at the remote sites would still be able to access the 2 functioning servers in the other core site.
Is this possible? If so, how? Hardware, or Software solution?
I looked at round-robin DNS.
This can help with balancing requests among the 4 servers but provides no redundancy incase 1 server dies.
I looked at Server 2003 Network Load Balancing feature but it seems that all servers involved need to be in the same subnet.
I briefly looked at a hardware product called BIGIP by F5, but have no idea if this is what I would need, or if this is overkill.
Our current envirnonment is Windows 2000 Server sp4 and SQL 2000 sp3
Thanks
Change the shortcut to point at a name ser1sql and in DNS add the server IP if server goes down changed the ip address to the other server in DNS
ASKER
"Change the shortcut to point at a name ser1sql " Im not sure I understand what you mean by ser1sql
It sounds like your suggesting using DNS round robin and removing the failed server host record from DNS when a server goes offline.
The problem with this is that we have over 60 sites. Each site has a domain controller. The changes would take a while to replicate.
It sounds like your suggesting using DNS round robin and removing the failed server host record from DNS when a server goes offline.
The problem with this is that we have over 60 sites. Each site has a domain controller. The changes would take a while to replicate.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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