Redundant Servers
What does Server Redundancy mean? Server redundancy refers to the amount and intensity of backup, failover or redundant servers in a computing environment. It defines the ability of a computing infrastructure to provide additional servers that may be deployed on runtime for backup, load balancing or temporarily halting a primary server for maintenance purposes.
Nothing is more critical when it comes to data than its ability to be retained and accessed. At MVI Hosting, we have designed our networking infrastructure with that critical thought in mind. When it comes to redundancy, it is not enough to have the data simply mirrored on some other system. We believe that for critical information and real-time access to software, a properly designed redundant server architecture is key.
At MVI Hosting, the way we setup our servers are unique in the industry. Since we are concerned with not only data integrity, but high availability, we have created a system that ensures that we have your information available on demand. What we do is create a system where the ‘main’ server has a physical connection to its identical twin. This twin server is constantly updated with any changes (changed site files, updated database information, etc) that took place on the ‘main’ server. While these changes are tracked a system is configured between the two servers to make sure that each of them are ‘talking’ to each other. Like a human wearing a pacemaker, this system is designed to make sure that a ‘heart beat’ is constantly taking place. If, for some reason, the heart beat on the ‘main’ server stops or slows down, the twin of that server will instantly take over as the ‘main’ server.
Once the twin has taken over and become the ‘main’ server, it can run as long as is needed to make whatever repairs are necessary to the original server. This has the effect of the twin becoming the main source for displaying information and handling requests. Once the original server is repaired and the heart beat is re-established, the original main server will re-synchronize with the twin server and become the new twin server.
The measures that MVI Hosting employs when it comes to redundancy are designed to provide as much uptime as is physically possible to our customers. One of the benefits of our system is that, in most cases, our customers never know that the twin took ownership of the requests. To them it’s just business as usual. We pride ourselves on our ability to anticipate problems and to create a system that not only spots those problems but proactively handles the situation when a problem does occur.
Server redundancy is implemented in an enterprise IT infrastructure where server availability is of paramount importance. To enable server redundancy, a server replica is created with the same computing power, storage, applications and other operational parameters. A redundant server is kept offline. That is, it powers on with network/Internet connectivity but is not used as a live server. In case of failure, downtime or excessive traffic at the primary server, a redundant server can be implemented to take the primary server’s place or share its traffic load.