Hi:

I need help with with setting up multiple nameservers, and I want to mirror my website and SQL DB to each nameserver so if ns1 goes down, it will go immeaditely to ns2, and so on.

I want to setup 3 nameservers. I need to know how I can get this to work. Also do I need 3 boxes to make this work?

Any suggestions and help would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance & I appreciate it.

Maybe the coffee hasn't kicked in yet today, but I'm not following.

Are you proposing to setup three servers, each one running as a name server and web server, with the web servers mirroring each other?

I didn't catch what platform you are running on. Is this Win2k? You can use Win2k's load balancing feature to share an IP amongst multiple servers for load balance and fail over support, but it may not be a good solution. First of all, you wouldn't want to do that unless they were behind a firewall to control inbound traffic.

If it's a Win2k setup, I can give you more pointers about setting it up, but it would require more info about what you're doing.

Thanks for your help, and yes it is Windows 2000.

Im trying to find the best way to have back up servers incase one goes down. This way traffic would be routed to another working server that has the same exact information as the first.

Just a note, I am running a site that uses an SQL database.

Thanks again.

Originally posted by about2flip

Im trying to find the best way to have back up servers incase one goes down. This way traffic would be routed to another working server that has the same exact information as the first.

Just a note, I am running a site that uses an SQL database.



To start with, you can make your life easier by moving the SQL to its own back end server and have all your front end web servers reference that one SQL server. This setup eliminates the need to setup SQL server replication. (Not to mention it saves you 2 SQL server licenses at over $1000 each.)

As for the web servers, setup the IIS servers in a Windows Network Load Balance "cluster" (its not really a cluster but that's MS's term). Our web pages didn't change very often as all the content was database driven. When a change was made, we had written a Window Script Host script to synch any new pages from a staging directory to the live directories on each server to keep content in synch.

It can be done; primarily you have to determine if you have the servers and funds to do it this way. You can go a step better if you have the funds and setup a hardware balancing and failover server, but that gets into much more cash.

Originally posted by ServerGuys


Our web pages didn't change very often as all the content was database driven. When a change was made, we had written a Window Script Host script to synch any new pages from a staging directory to the live directories on each server to keep content in synch.

You state that you written a script to synch any new pages. Setting up windows to cluster does it do this? Also, I should move my SQL to a server by itself?

I build the boxes I utilize, so please tell me what I can do as you stated in your last paragraph.

Thanks again.

As far as SQL goes, I would dedicate one server to run SQL server as a back end server (meaning it is not accessible from the internet; only the web servers can talk to it). Configure your code on your IIS servers to point to the SQL server for data services. If you connect via a DSN, this just means setup the DSN for a remote server (not local). If you use an ADO connection string, modify it to point to the SQL server. However your code works, there should be way to setup the code that will reside on any front end web servers to all reference a single back end SQL server.

As for the Windows network load balancing, it does not do the job of synching content for you. All the NLB does is create a virtual IP address to which multiple servers can respond to provide load distribution and fail over support. It's up to the administrator to provide a method for maintaining continuity on the servers in the NLB cluster. (Remember, in MS terms, this is different than a true cluster with shared DASDI and resources.)

As for a dedicated balancing and failover system, an old friend works with and loves the Cisco solution. I believe it is a 4400 series content router that gives this ability. It's supposed to be a beast, but it's also pricey.