Best software for complete server replication and fail over?

[w1z4rd]

I have a pretty busy Cpanel CentOS server. It has some very important clients on it and I want to make a complete fail over server. I assume I will need to do this by purchasing another server, setting up hardware load balancing and then replicating and syncing the two servers.

Whats the best way to get a complete replication and syncing happening between the two servers? Basically, the idea is that if one of the servers goes down, the other server automaitcally picks up the slack and users dont notice any downtime whatsover. Neither do they need to make any configuration changes or lose any mail.

Ive never done something like this so I have no idea what the best options out there are, or if the solution our data center has recommended (with the ip load balancer) is the best. It has to be a solution for Cpanel.

 

[Elimentals]

Only way I know how to do this is using a SAN for DataStore + VMware

Click http://www.vmware.com/technical-res...ailability/load-balancing/load-balancing.html for more details

Maybe you can even look at 2 x VMware servers with http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-backup.html

 

[PsyWulf]

What you are after in broadest terms is called HA ( High Availability ) and can be achieved in many ways. From Database replication and round-robin DNS to a full virtualized server replication.

When looking at HA you need to determine your budget by working out things like current average downtimes,costs incurred by those downtimes,and then balance this to different HA scenarios. Automatic switching with 0 downtime will bump the price by quite a bit so you'd best calculate exactly what you can afford to do.

 

[w1z4rd]

What you are after in broadest terms is called HA ( High Availability ) and can be achieved in many ways. From Database replication and round-robin DNS to a full virtualized server replication.

When looking at HA you need to determine your budget by working out things like current average downtimes,costs incurred by those downtimes,and then balance this to different HA scenarios. Automatic switching with 0 downtime will bump the price by quite a bit so you'd best calculate exactly what you can afford to do.

Well, I currently pay around R3000 for the one server, so Im willing to spend R9000 a month all in all for this (though I would prefer to get it cheaper ).

 

[rrh]

I would start by speaking to VMWare ... they virtualise entire installations !

 

[PsyWulf]

What's the current server's:
RAM
Processors
Average CPU load
Average memory load
Total storage in use