cPanel clustering with IP Failover

[ccool4.me]

Hi all

This is an idear of a new feature of cPanel : clustering server
It is an idear for small structure with 2 or 3 servers.

MAY BE I AM WRONG , MAY BE THERE IS SOMETHING EASY TO DO WITH TWO SERVERS TO DEAL WITH LIVE FAILURE SERVER ???

Today, as far as I know cPanel does not handdle server clustering (only DNS cluster). If one server fails, there are 2 solutions :

- re-install quickly cPanel and restore multiple backup. Not so easy and fast if customize software installed (as ffmpeg, firewall, exotic configuration, tomcat server, applications in webapps). It can be a nightmare if no clear doc on the whole procedure to reinsall the server (did you note step by step what you have done during 3 years on the server ? It is quite old now , :+)

- have a cross backup on another server : serv1 send backup to serv2 and you will have to restore multiples backup on serv2 and to change DNS and to pray this will not take too much time

My idear is to use IP FAILOVER and to propose a new cPanel feature :

- with IP Failover, you can switch IP from serv1 to serv2 in 5 minutes
- *** if *** (that's not the case today= cPanel could copy / backup accounts automatically and *** keep the same IP in the DNS Zone *** (under let's say 'cluster or failover copy or restore)
- then if serv1 is down, serv2 is ready, you just have to change IP Failover from one server to another server and no DNS propagation and the sites are using the other server with 5 minutes

What do you think about that ?

Of course it will need external hardware feature IPFO

Here you can see IP Failover propose in Europe
IP Fail-over - OVH

Cheers
Frédéric

[cPanelDavidG]

Given that IP failover is usually handled by a third server/appliance (if you are protecting 2 servers), is this request very much dissimilar from http://forums.cpanel.net/f145/load-b...rs-201471.html ? I just figured I would ask before merging these requests.

[SoftDux]

My idear is to use IP FAILOVER and to propose a new cPanel feature :

- with IP Failover, you can switch IP from serv1 to serv2 in 5 minutes
- *** if *** (that's not the case today= cPanel could copy / backup accounts automatically and *** keep the same IP in the DNS Zone *** (under let's say 'cluster or failover copy or restore)
- then if serv1 is down, serv2 is ready, you just have to change IP Failover from one server to another server and no DNS propagation and the sites are using the other server with 5 minutes

Cheers
Frédéric

This is still a single point of failure.

You should rather look at a virtualized environment where you have 2 XEN / KVM / VMWare / HyperV Virtual Machines, one on each server, and then run them on a clustered SAN with dual network paths. Have everything in doubles to avoid downtime

[nibb]

What you posted is no fail over solution at all.

You need to mirror or sync data in real time so its a fault over solution and this is something that cannot be done with cPanel. Please take into account cPanel is the control panel to manage specific services like Apache, Exim, etc, and some OS features like yum update.

A solution like that has to be done in the OS level or actually like most do it, in the virtualization level, completely abstracted from hardware.

You cannot possible expect something like this in cPanel. A solution like that costs allot of money, you need a shared storage, usually a SAN device, and then you need the same data running in parallel in real time in both hardware machines, this can be done with virtualization like Xen or VmWare (Virtuozzo is not virtualization at all, it just a chrooted multiple OS system)

Search something like Double Take and you will get an idea. You don´t need to make a single change in cPanel to have this working, as the IP change or fail over if made directly in the nic card.

Whats the point of having a fail over if the data you have in the other server is old?

You should better research a bit on how this solutions work, cPanel is a control panel, its a software that runs on tops of a software the OS, which again runs on top of a virtualization layer or directly over the hardware. A true fail over solution should be in done via hardware and virtualization layers. So cPanel cannot do anything in this regard.

If you are talking about only a cPanel fail over solution, it would be so complex and so problematic, nobody would use it and most people that look for a fail over or HA solution do it like I explained. Usually if you want to do it even better you will use a device like a Netscaler similar to what Google uses, you can even fail to a complete different datacenter this way. Only the netscaler appliance can costs anything between a couples of thousands to a quarter of million.

A very simple HA or Fail Overs solution without including the hardware, or cPanel license, only the setup and software you need can costs at least 7,000$ to 12,000$ depending on what you are looking at. This is a simple fail over solution from rack to rack inside the same DC and this doesnt count switches or any other hardware you need.