Best Solution For HA and Network Load Balancing? 298
supaneko writes "I am working with a non-profit that will eventually host a massive online self-help archive and community (using FTP and HTTP services). We are expecting 1,000+ unique visitors / day. I know that having only one server to serve this number of people is not a great idea, so I began to look into clusters. After a bit of reading I determined that I am looking for high availability, in case of hardware fault, and network load balancing, which will allow the load to be shared among the two to six servers that we hope to purchase. What I have not been able to determine is the 'perfect' solution that would offer efficiency, ease-of-use, simple maintenance, enjoyable performance, and a notably better experience when compared to other setups. Reading about Windows 2003 Clustering makes the whole process sounds easy, while Linux and FreeBSD just seem overly complicated. But is this truly the case? What have you all done for clustering solutions that worked out well? What key features should I be aware for successful cluster setup (hubs, wiring, hardware, software, same servers across the board, etc.)?"
