plesk failover server

[jdroger3]

I have one plesk server (8.4) and I'd like to have as hot a failover as possible. What is the best way to increase the availability of plesk? Also, is it possible to do this in another location, syncing over the WAN / VPN?

 

[davex2cms]

Best way is to setup a mirror server with some setup then do regulary backups and restores to failover server using plesk tools.

If you primary server goes down get your network hosts to change your IP's to point to your failover server or update DNS to the same effect.

 

[LeaUK]

Best way is to run on Virtual Iron or VMWare (if you can afford VMWare).

We run on Virtual Iron

 

[shoggy24]

But isnt performance an issue when you run your server on virtualization? especially Plesk windows. I run a plesk server on a dual xeon with 4GB ram and it is really slow especially sitebuilder. my linux server runs on lower memory and runs almost 2x as fast.

So i can only imagine how slow it will run on a virtual server

 

[LeaUK]

Nope is the short answer.

You are assuming that applications run slower in virtualisation layers, but thankfully you are wrong. Yes, Plesk Windows isn't rapid I know but I have v8.3 on a dual 2.4GHz and v8.4 on a dual 2.6GHz (runing on VI) and they're extremely similar in terms of performance, not the same but almost identical. In fact my Virtual platform supports much faster writes due to the improved underlying hardware.

VMs are the only way to get full automatic redundancy and data-centres everywhere are spending millions porting the majority of their hosting products over.

Lea

 

[shoggy24]

No i am not assuming, i know Virtualization will be slower to a degree even if you are running a single VM. Performance will depend on the hardware, how many VMs and how many websites/applications you will be running on each VM. I definetly agree that it is a better disaster recovery solution and easy and cheaper to implement/maintain in the long run, but make no mistake it has it's downside too.

 

[LeaUK]

the performance decrease is minimal compared to the time Windows Plesk takes ;-). I am experienced with both VI and VMWare and would be surprised if you noticed the difference to be honest. Ok agreed, if you over subscribe your platform then of course the CPU/memory is shared (hey the whole point of VMs) but in my opinion the magic of autofailover (we loose one ping at failover) is dreamy and well worth it.

Lea