how to go about load balancing?
 

hi guys,

have been searchign these forums on and off for 2 days looking for some definitive guide to load balancing, but not finding anything.

basically just want two httpd servers and one mysql server (which also acts as one of the httpd servers).

any pointers would be welcomed :)

thanks!

What information exactly are you after ? how much do you know already ?

well, i own a box, have run and managed a web hosting company for a few years. have one mega large board which has been growing much more than i realized it would, and it's having a bad effect on my dedicated box. i have another spare box right now and would rather set up some http load balancing. i know the theory behind it, but in practice it'd be nice to have some sort of "step 1 - copy files over, step 2" etc etc....

There is no really step-by-step instructions for this. It will all depend a lot on the hardware and software you are using for the load-balancing.

Best place to ask this would be at the Server Configuration forum at vbulletin.com.

A simple system is not hard to set-up, you just install the vb files on each web server, pointing to the database (mysql will need to be running tcp networking). You then have two dns entries for your site, one for each ip address. When a client requests the dns address of your server, the dns server should alternately send each address, so in theory you should get about 50% of requests on each box.

I have sucessfully used this method on a site when we were very heavily loaded.

Such a system is quick and easy, anything above this will start needing extra hardware and software.