Server cluster design

I'm putting together a design for an appication server cluster for a private intranet. Relaibility and data integrity are important. Key packages are apache, PHP and MySQL. I'm looking to use between 4 and 8 servers.

What would everyone recommend as a good layout for the servers?

BTW as it's an intranet we're not worried about DNS, or failover for apache etc as if www.domain.com is down we want to access the same packages and data via www2.domain.com on the second or third web server, users will be aware that in the event of a problem www2 is the backup.

eg
1) 2 file servers, 2 to 4 servers running apache, php, mysql.
or
2) 2 fileservers, 2 servers running mysql and 2 servers with apache and php.
3) Something else?

Are there any issues here that I should consider?

I'm working on the basis that 1) is good. File server is easy to mirror on a second server (Best software for this??)

Apache, php and mysql are simple enough to run on the same server and in the event of one server failing users would be able to access the live data easily via any one of the other web servers as they'd still be accessing the same file server.

Anyone have experience of this that could point out pitfalls and or alternatives?

 

 

 

 

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