I have a website and a while ago, the web server of the company hosting my website was down for about a day. I consulted the company for a solution on how i can stop this from happening in future and they suggested to have a second machine and which will be connected to my current website/web server by a "load balancer" (at an additional huge cost!!!). The second machine will be replicate of the first one and so if i goes down, the other will always be running.
—- Explanation —–
My hosting company suggested that it will be a good idea to have a second machine running at the same time and both the machines will be connected by a load balancer which reduces the rist of a downtime. The second machine will be a mirror of the first and any changes to first must be replicated in the second.
I don't mind spending money if it really saves my website from going down. I want to know is it worth having this "load balancer" for my purpose?
My website is a 24/7 service. I cannot afford an outage of 24 hours/1 hour. I don't mind using this "load balancer" as far as it is really worth. I am not sure if its just a marketing trick of my hosting company or really a "best" solution.
Thanks for help.
Regards
Best Answer
Depends what you require your service level to be. If you need to be up 24/7, then go for a high availability solution.
Your host's current suggestion sounds a little questionable. As you've described it, if the primary server goes down, the load balancing service dies too and there's no way to offload traffic to the backup. When load balancing you usually opt for a DNS based solution that has multiple A records, each pointing to one of your servers. If one goes down, clients will try the next in the list. This means that there is no single point of failure that is within your control.
As to whether it's worth paying a lot extra for, it depends on a lot of things.
Here's my suggestions:
It's all about tailoring a solution that's right for your service. If you find that your budget isn't sufficient to keep availability at the level you need, then it may be time to rethink the feasibility of your project.