One of the biggest concerns for businesses online is guaranteed up-time. If a business’ web site is not accessible, this converts into profit lost. Leading web hosting companies constantly update and revamp their infrastructures to ensure redundancy and maximum up-time guarantees. Occasionally, a downed server just cannot be avoided. So, what can web hosting companies implement to minimize the potential of a loss of service for their customers? Clustered hosting is one solution.
Standalone server hosting
With regular single server hosting, there can be at many needed web services running on one machine – Web Server, DNS, control panel, database, e-mail server, ftp server and more. All these services running at the same time and using so many processes can cause a signifigant load issue on one single server. This heavy load leads to slow performance and, occasionally, the inability for web sites to be viewable on the web.
An easy way to imagine this is one’s own computer. The more programs that are opened and running on a computer, the more time it takes for the computer to process different bits of data all being used simultaneously. The load on the computer becomes excessive and programs start to not respond, fail or completely shut down. This is the same dilemma facing single server hosting.
Single server hosting companies don’t normally have only one web site per server – they often times serve several hundred web sites all on a single server. So, take the example above and multiply this by hundreds. It is easy to see how a server can get bogged down quickly and cause web site errors.
What is clustered hosting?
Clustered hosting is achieved by spreading out the load of hosting across several servers. When the hosting load is spread out across these multiple servers, there is a decreased chance of a service affecting another. For example, if one web site runs a rather large and load-heavy database, the increased load work can be put across several servers thereby decreasing the chance that another customer’s web site is affected.
What is normally put into practice for busy websites is a spreading out of services across multiple servers. The advantage being if one service requires an update or is experiencing heavier than normal traffic, the resource in question will not drain or cause an adverse effect on other services and web sites.
Additionally, servers require occasional rebooting when software and programs are updated or upgraded. When using a clustered platform, rebooting can be staggered so that the program in question can still be available and utilized while other machines are working on the upgrade.
Conclusion
With hundreds of businesses and organizations creating and hosting their web sites daily, it simply makes sense to seek out hosting companies that understand the need to load balance their servers and services. Do the research and make sure the company chosen understands the logic of clustered hosting. Nothing loses new customers and clients like a web site that constantly bogs down or cannot be viewed.
