Need help finding a Load-Balance Capable provider.

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Posted by efarmer, 12-28-2005, 01:34 PM
We have a project that will grow into load-balance setup. i.e. loadbalancer -> hw firewall -> web servers -> mysql-server(s) Need recomendations of providers that have experience with similiar setup that has a reliable network. Thx and happy holidays.
Posted by Apolo, 01-02-2006, 05:22 PM
Hi efarmer, I'm not sure whether you found a provider yet, but I'm almost sure most providers would be able to offer you this kind of setup if you ask them, and if you have the budget for it. I could advise you to find your provider from the beginning instead of waiting for site/application to grow. This way is a lot easier for your provider to scalate your current solution. Regards, Jaime
Posted by efarmer, 01-05-2006, 11:39 AM
Thx Jaime, No we have not commit with any provider yet. Most providers will offer this setup when asked but who had done such setup and experience with it is another issue. We cannot afford to have someone to experiment on our setup.
Posted by Apolo, 01-05-2006, 12:06 PM
I see your point. In this case, you better ask your provider for some testimonials and previous (similar) configurations performed, but I think a *honest* provider would be able to tell you whether they have done this kind of work before or not. Happy holidays for your too! Regards, Jaime
Posted by eth00, 01-09-2006, 11:55 AM
Ev1 has a lot of experience doing this through their private racks. They have serveriron load balancers and pix firewalls along with the experience to use them. TSS currently works with quiet a few load balancers and they are amazing Ev1 also provides a special support method for private racks that allows you direct access to a dedicated floor tech.
Posted by efarmer, 01-09-2006, 12:18 PM
Thx John, Their private rack looks interesting, it seems like colocation without the hassle of colocation.
Posted by DjMiX, 01-09-2006, 01:18 PM
I would also recommend checking out ev1
Posted by Joel B., 01-10-2006, 01:16 AM
I've been an EV1 customer since 2003 and am exceedingly pleased with their services. I added their load-balanced pair setup to my team of servers for one particularly high-traffic website (ev1servers.net/hosting/load_balanced.asp) and would recommend it a thousand times over. And since the company I have managing it set it up right, I've had 100% uptime since I got the servers set up in April of last year.... which was a lot better than the old company I had back in 2002 where I had about 85-90% uptime for the year.
Posted by mrmasta, 01-11-2006, 01:29 AM
You might check out fastservers.net I was on the phone with them today about the same thing. They guy I was speaking with knew what he was talking about and they would not be experimenting as it is something they have done. There is a 100.00 setup fee for the mirroring, load balancing etc setup but not for the servers themselves.
Posted by Oosband, 01-11-2006, 06:48 PM
www.fasthosts.co.uk offer it...the costs are quite high though.
Posted by SMachiz, 01-12-2006, 04:18 AM
Do you have a specific location in mind? Best, Sam
Posted by efarmer, 01-12-2006, 12:01 PM
Preference will be the westcoast, however, it actually doesn't matters too much.
Posted by SMachiz, 01-12-2006, 12:03 PM
Well, I'm not too familiar with West Coast shops, but Jay at ethr.net is supposed to be pretty good. Best, Sam
Posted by efarmer, 01-12-2006, 12:17 PM
Thank You Sam
Posted by Corptex, 01-15-2006, 01:11 PM
I've looked into load-balancing and more complex situations. No, you don't want someone experimenting, you want someone experienced and professional at it. EV1 Only place I found, and my current DC even recommended them. I love my DC/server provider, but they don't have experience with these kind of situations. EV1 came recommended to me by a management team AND my own DC. I haven't used them, so I have no experience, but it's just too much to ignore when an excellent DC recommends another DC for something.
Posted by alex-davies, 01-15-2006, 02:58 PM
I've worked on quite a few loadbalanced projects with EV1 and I can say that they are excellent. They used to have major issues actually setting the thing up - several times they have made a complete hash of putting the correct servers together (I was given someone elses live server once as part of a pair...) but these seem to have been solved recently. I have no idea what your budget is but the private racks are highly recommended. I personally don't suggest you use their loadbalancer (which is expensive and offers few benefits for most sites over LVS) but set up LVS across two of your servers, in active/passive HA mode (with heartbeat). Get a gigabit switch and gigabit secondary ethernet cards and you can set up a very nice solution that you can just add servers to as your load increases. As a starting point their pairs are quite good but frankly not much superior to getting two servers and making your own loadbalancer. I actually found their loadbalancer for the pairs very restrictive - for example their timeout for a dead server can be quite long and you can't configure it (which I found really annoying several times). Similarly, it is automatically sticky - you can't disable sticky sessions even for http. Alex
Posted by efarmer, 01-23-2006, 01:56 AM
Thx Alex, looks quite interesting.
Posted by silverjen, 01-31-2006, 06:59 PM
If you're in the process of expanding your business, you should look for a provider that can offer excellet support and consulting. Although most companies can provide a cluster configuration, not all can provide the level of support that is necessary---this is in the long-run. Some companies charge extra for all the service support, check for this----as well, some companies operate only during business hours---then leave at night---or go fishing. If you are expanding, then you will need more support---this should be the main key point.
Posted by reiteration, 02-02-2006, 04:27 PM
Watch out for DNS based load balancers, they simply don't work. Google for GSLBPageOfShame Go with a proper Layer 7 switching capable load balancer. John
Posted by efarmer, 02-02-2006, 04:36 PM
Thx, never consider DNS based as they are in my opinion not load balancing.
Posted by Linn_Boyd, 02-04-2006, 11:43 PM
I have been working with load balancers for a while and like them. A fairly new solution that I am working and and have been EXTREAMLY satisfied with is CentOS running the cluster suite, it is a bit harder to setup than the Server Irons, but I tell you what, now they are AWSOME in our inital load tests. Cheers. Linn
Posted by Corptex, 02-05-2006, 08:50 AM
Hi TheDingy I used Centos for about a year, no problems with it that I know of. Are you saying Centos has a cluster module incorporated into the O/S ? Thanks,
Posted by Linn_Boyd, 02-05-2006, 11:01 AM
Check this http://www.centos.org/modules/news/a...hp?storyid=108 out for the anoucement. We have just configured Xen to run on a cluster and it is NICE. Hard to configure but NICE. You can also do IP load balancing etc, I have done that before, but this was the first time for a xen cluster. -Linn
Posted by peteysa, 02-22-2006, 02:58 PM
I would recommend Rackspace for your load balanced solution. They have quaility customer service and experienced technicians / engineers. Check webiste for customer credentials, and of course, if you are reading this you are already experiencing their hosting quality. Cheers!
Posted by efarmer, 02-22-2006, 03:13 PM
Thx for referring Rackspace, we were with them before. Our experience with them: - network good - tech knowledgeable But we prefer a smaller provider that will work with us on at a more personal level. It is a very good place to go if money is not any concern at all. We may soon go back to them for another project that needs to leverage their Brand.
Posted by jessesmith, 03-01-2006, 10:27 PM
look at dedicatedhosting.com the are very good with load balancing and have several 100 customers doing it right now. Peer 1 Dedicated Hosting Managed Dedicated 1-866-495-7563