failover, backups and uptime
after a major fiasco, lost clients and revenue losses with our last hosting company (i was a reseller) we packed up and moved on.
the thing is this, im trying to set up measures to make sure this doesnt happen again
what i have done so far is this
have two different server accounts with two different companies, ive got the "important" sites on both servers.
ive got 4 nameservers so the "important" sites name servers read something like this
ns1.firstsite.com
ns2.firstsite.com
ns3.secondsite.com
ns3.secondsite.com
i know there has to be more that i can do, but what specifically? i have a feeling something in the DNS zones needs to be changed, maybe the TTL settings?
i dont want the sites to "load balance" i only want the second server to come up when it is necessary. or should i try for the load balancing?
also, will the sites only resolve to the nameservers in the EXACT order i list them in? or does it fish around to see what is available at the moment or???
the other thing is handling emails in case of a catastrophy. we obviously dont want ppl getting two sets of emails everytime they get email.
ive been reading up on this but have only found general remarks about it, nothing very specific
my other problem is how do i test this to make sure it works?
also what about dns and nameservers. are those controlled by the registrar? as in if the registrar has a problem can ALL the nameservers go down? ouch that would suck.
after doing a very brief cheap hosting site, i have found that my clients value their sites and are willing to pay lots of money to make sure they dont go down...
what other ills do i have to watch for??? i want to be prepared for every possible scenario!
any help would be appreciated!
ps dont be toooo technical, im still learning!
thanks
