Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Poke holes in this semi-redudant strategy, please

[rbstern]

Data Center 1:

ns1.mydomain.net
Servers with all customer domains


Data Center 2:

ns2.mydomain.net
Backup server with nightly refresh of all customer domains

Under normal circumstances, ns2 will point to Data Center 1 servers. If Data Center 1 goes offline for any reason, I change the DNS on ns2 to point to Data Center 2 servers.

Ir realize that DNS caching in many places prevents this from being entirely effective, but aside from that issue, what's wrong with this as a poor man's redundancy strategy?

[Take-IT-EZZI]

Originally Posted by rbstern

Ir realize that DNS caching in many places prevents this from being entirely effective, but aside from that issue, what's wrong with this as a poor man's redundancy strategy?

For one if your clients sites run on databases, take orders, support requests, etc... The databases might not be in sync from a once nightly backup, and operating out of sync on another server could potentially put them further out of sync.

And of course, you realize this won't give you 100% uptime.

Other than that, I'd say its a good effort at having a redundant solution.

[amc-james]

You should probably get one of those DNS failover services (I forget who sells them), but basically they handle DNS and make the appropriate changes when a failure occurs. Your data will still be out of sync, perhaps, but atleast it wont need your intervention to make the DNS changes.