Re: multi servers

On 12/07/2010 16:32, john wrote:
> I am hosting my own website with 2k3. I wanted to add a backups sever
> to my network so if one breaks down visitors can still go to my
> website. How do I go about it? Should the second server be a member
> server?

If your first server is a domain member then there's no reason why the
second one shouldn't also be a member server.

Depending on how your site is put together, your best bet might be to
use Network Load Balancing. This will also enable you to perform
maintenance on your servers by draining one out of the NLB group,
performing the maintenance and then swap the nodes around to do the
other server. Access to your site should be uninterrupted.

As I said, this will depend heavily on the way your site works. If your
site makes use of a backend database this will need to be visible to
both servers. If your site maintains session state using the standard
ASP session object or using the ASP.NET in-process session state model,
this will not work with NLB since each node will only be aware of its
own subset of the user sessions. With ASP.NET you can just switch the
session state mode to use a session state server or a SQL database
store, and things should continue to work as-is. Classic ASP will
require code changes to move away from the standard session object. You
can use affinity in the NLB configuration to ensure that a particular
client will always hit the same node, but this will make draining a
server more difficult and if the IIS process recycles then the state
will be lost.

Lots to consider there anyway, good luck!

--
Chris M.

On 12/07/2010 18:49, john wrote:
>>> I am hosting my own website with 2k3. I wanted to add a backups sever
>>> to my network so if one breaks down visitors can still go to my
>>> website. How do I go about it? Should the second server be a member
>>> server?
>>
>> If your first server is a domain member then there's no reason why the
>> second one shouldn't also be a member server.
>>
>> Depending on how your site is put together, your best bet might be to
>> use Network Load Balancing. This will also enable you to perform
>> maintenance on your servers by draining one out of the NLB group,
>> performing the maintenance and then swap the nodes around to do the
>> other server. Access to your site should be uninterrupted.
>>
>> As I said, this will depend heavily on the way your site works. If your
>> site makes use of a backend database this will need to be visible to
>> both servers. If your site maintains session state using the standard
>> ASP session object or using the ASP.NET in-process session state model,
>> this will not work with NLB since each node will only be aware of its
>> own subset of the user sessions. With ASP.NET you can just switch the
>> session state mode to use a session state server or a SQL database
>> store, and things should continue to work as-is. Classic ASP will
>> require code changes to move away from the standard session object. You
>> can use affinity in the NLB configuration to ensure that a particular
>> client will always hit the same node, but this will make draining a
>> server more difficult and if the IIS process recycles then the state
>> will be lost.
>>
>> Lots to consider there anyway, good luck!
>>
>> --
>> Chris M.
>
> Thanks.I work with ASP.Net, so it should be a lot easier. BTW how
> would I switch the session state mode?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...8VS.71%29.aspx

--
Chris M.