2 webservers failover needed

umisenken · ‎03-10-2008

Hi,

I just posted a message a couple hours ago and marked it as solving my problem but then realized the solution would not work.

Anyways, I have 2 webservers that are Linux running Apache. I would like the cataylst switch to provide failover capabilities to the servers. The servers are mirror copies of each other and the websites do not use sessions or anything like that so you can switch to the second server for a file transfer at any point (just not during a file transfer).

Anycast was suggested but I will need to transmit large images via HTTP which would cause issues since HTTP usually uses a TCP connection if I remember correctly and if the optimal route changes during this it can break the connection.

Any other ideas? I heard about STP and etherchannels but I don't know much about them.

Thanks,

Nick

branfarm1 · ‎03-11-2008

What type of networking device are you using? If you're looking for an active/active situation where the servers load-balacne you could use Server Load Balancing, which is in IOS feature on some versions, if I remember right. As for actual failover on the servers, you might be able to find a software agent that puts the Apache servers in a "cluster" and monitors the health of each instance. STP or etherchannels will not help you in this situation unfortunately.