Can Dual Xserves running 10.2 be load balanced?

Fahrvergnuugen

Fahrvergnuugen

I am the law!
Actually, I have no idea how load balancing works specifically. I know the concept behind it, but I don't know the technicalities behind setting it up.

I'm very close to convincing work to buy an Xserve to use as our Intranet server [apache, php, mysql, etc] but I want to know if it's possible to load balance accross 2 Xserves later on if needed.
 
AFAIK, load balancing is handled by a separate device that will usually just hand off each new connection request to the next machine on a list.

So, as long as all the servers had the exact same data, and are set up the same, it should work.
 
Alright, that makes more sense.
Not that I think we'll ever need to loadbalance the intranet if its on an Xserve.
problem is, my boss is used to M$ and our current server [dual 733 win2k/iis .5gb ram] is DOGGED out. Little does he realize that a *NIX server will kick our old server's ass :)
 
Well, loadbalancing is really good depending on what you're going to use it for.

Say you want to loadbalance or loadshare a fileserver, then you'll have to have a realtime synchronization of the files residing on the two harddrives, otherwise one can not find the same files on both servers, see?

Sure, you could use a shared harddrive, but then it'll be the most probobal point of failure so you might as well only use one machine instead of two.

On the other side if you'll be running quite a static service like an intranet you could really enhance the performance by loadbalancing it. Perhaps users are supposed to be able to upload their own documents and so on? If so it'll be quite easy to script some sort of sync functionality that not only saves the file(s) onto one harddrive but also mirrors it to the other machine.

Anyway, it's quite a good thing for websites or webservices.

That's my 2 cents.
 
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