Using different servers for websites

Question

I have been running WSP from a single server for a while now. (Only mailserver is on separate machine)

Now I want to ditch my Plesk servers and move everything over to WSP system but have a few questions/issues?I love the concept of one portal and several different servers that feed the services.

Question 1:

If I want to add other systems/servers with IIS, do I need to create a domain  so the usernames are domain wide instead of server-wide or does the WSPserver takes care of that issue?

Question 2:

I found that when I add a second IIS server to the virtual server, it uses a 'balancing' system to divide the new website over the different servers. But I haven't seen anyway to force a certain website to a specific place.I made a separate Hostingpackage, using the server directly instead of the virtual but that seems to give some DNS issues. Guess I should not also use the DNS service of that IIS server but keep it on the main virtual package? (Already setup with primary and sec. DNS servers)

Question 3:

All (hardware) servers are in a DC. Is there any benefit from connecting them on an 'internal' network? It seems that the connection over the Internet/WAN works fine.PLease let me hear your suggestions and experiences, pitfalls etc when deploying several servers within the WSP system.

Answer 1

Hello,

WSP Provides multiple server support however this does NOT equal loadbalanced or Failover server support.

(that is a whole different category.. involving web farm framework, or shared IIS config).

I'm not sure how much systems you got BUT for multiple server i would always use Active Directory servers.

Using active directory makes your servers AND sites easily to be replaced (or placed) on different servers and keeps things more *mobile*.

For question 2:

I would make Multiple virtual servers that are specifically assigned to ONE IIS SERVER .  as in the end.. i would keep the sites of your customers together on each server.

Question 3:

Benefit of an internal network would be security and divide Internal traffic away from External traffic. (so it pretty much means your External traffic is purely used for your customers/ internet traffic and the Internal data traffic from server to server etc stays 100% internal)

If you got any other questions or need help with a server setup feel free to ask more info :)

Regards,

Marco

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Key4ce - IT professionals: www.key4ce.eu

Answer 2

Hey Marco,

Thanks for your answers.

Currently 3 hardware servers with some VM's but one still on Linux. So I am starting with those two. 

For only two servers , the overhead of adding domain servers seems a bit over de top.

Creating a second virtual server, yup, Why didn't I think about that :-)

Thanks for sharing your experience, much appreciated.

Bastiaan

PS Tiggelaar sounds Dutch to me :-)

Answer 3

ah, yes for only 2 servers an AD structiour seems a bit too much (mainly because i would always advice to have atleast 2 Active directory Domain controllers and not a single point of failure ;))

It is however great if you want seperated DNS servers (2 DNS servers - Windows 2008 Core installation.. they can be DNS + AD --> then use AD to update eachothers DNS records ;))

Maybe for the future that will be intresting for you.

PS: Ik ben inderdaad nederlands.. MAAR ik woon tegenwoordig wel in china haha ;)

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Key4ce - IT professionals: www.key4ce.eu

Answer 4

Marco, thanks for all the feedback.

Out of curiosity, I do work in China for more than 20 years on a regular base :-) Can I contact you off-forum?

skype: zebrafilm / email bastiaan at zebrafilm dot com