Mirror server hosting !!?

[gyonis]

We’ve been asked to offer a technical proposal for a new established TV station, and the IT manager of the station has a long list of requirements, we covered it all, only one issues lift as we never done it before:

They want about 20-100 GB server for hosting and they want to have a mirror server, incase the 1st server was down, so it would redirect the visitors to the mirror server, I'm thinking of getting them a dedicated or semi-dedicated server, but how do you do the mirror issue.
Some one said to get two dedicated servers, but::

1. How we make it that when one is down, it automatically directed to the other, I believe there is software’s for that, so were do we install this software: the original server or the mirror server.
2. Should they be from two different companies and to different countries?
3. The web site will be with CMS and DB, how do you make sure that the mirror server have all the new data that was updated in the 1st server’s DB, do they have like shared DB or something, and how..

Any other information, links, or suggested hosting sites for reliable dedicated server (with big bandwidth) would be greatly appreciated.. thanx

P.S. We use PHP/ MySql technology.

[ldcdc]

I gave you the bit I could help with over at sitepoint forums.

You'll be mighty lucky if anyone else replies here. This forum is (sadly) very small.

[face]

Hey there,

This might be a bit late, but I have heard having a site with multiple A records is a simple (and cheap) way of effectively directing traffic to the available site. You would then need something like fmirror and a db backup to mirror the actual data.

Although I do not think this method has an official standard associated with it, I notice Google do it, so must work!

An A record is a DNS description of where your site is located, some hosting panels allow you to modify your DNS settings, and if so, this is theratically possible.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Gareth

[Tetraboy]

Unfortunately, mirrored or "clustered" hosting is not something with easy answers, especially if you want active redundancy, instead of fail over.

Here's some thoughts: The load balancing portion can be done with DNS and/or Anycasting. Rsync or similar can be used for keeping files in sync. MySQL and PostgreSQL both have cluster or master/slave database mirroring.

Setting everything up and tieing it together could be a chore. If you have the budget, consider using a service provider to setup the system. Some dedicated service providers now offer clusters too.

Edit:Ooops, didn't notice this thread was a year old. 

[ldcdc]

Edit:Ooops, didn't notice this thread was a year old.

This isn't a busy forum (things didn't change much from last april it seems ). It takes a longer for a thread to "expire" or be considered no longer relevant.

[Humbe]

I gave you the bit I could help with over at sitepoint forums.

You'll be mighty lucky if anyone else replies here. This forum is (sadly) very small.

Don't worry idcdc we will try to make it grow

[Albert1Ponting]

 Should they be from two different companies and to different countries?

It hardly makes any difference that it is from same company or different...

[danial34vitory]

So if we are doing Mirror server hosting it necessary to have different IP address

[LalbiaGillian]

It would be nice if you describe little more.