From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 5 06:51:02 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6694437B401 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 2003 06:51:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.lambertfam.org (www.lambertfam.org [216.223.208.55]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A729A43F93 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 2003 06:51:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from lambert@lambertfam.org) Received: from laptop.lambertfam.org (laptop.int.lambertfam.org [10.1.0.2]) by mail.lambertfam.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 87F9734D28 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 2003 09:50:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: by laptop.lambertfam.org (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 8EA578A9E; Tue, 5 Aug 2003 09:50:45 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2003 09:50:45 -0400 From: Scott Lambert To: FreeBSD-ISP@FreeBSD.org Message-ID: <20030805135045.GA672@laptop.lambertfam.org> Mail-Followup-To: FreeBSD-ISP@FreeBSD.org References: <20030804182222.A5C055553E@titanic.medinet.si> <20030804152939.F97726@elk.hughes.com.au> <20030805073757.G78439@titanic.medinet.si> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20030805073757.G78439@titanic.medinet.si> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Subject: Re: DNS Server Farm X-BeenThere: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Internet Services Providers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2003 13:51:02 -0000 On Tue, Aug 05, 2003 at 07:42:21AM +0200, Blaz Zupan wrote: > > Seeing as a "real" load balancer, like a ServerIron XL, can be > > found on Ebay for next to nothing these days, it's a very workable > > solution. We just built such a solution for a network with about > > 550,000 users and it works just fine. 2 or 3 good boxes and a load > > balancer will also be much cheaper than a box at each pop. > > But you still have a single point of failure. You have all your boxes > located at a single location. If you have a power failure or other > catastropic event at that location, your whole DNS setup fails, while > the rest of the network works just fine, just without a working DNS > server. Same thing if your load balancer fails. What he said. Even with my twenty thousand users, I put a DNS server at each of the regional hubs. That way any of the regions could be down without affecting the other users. It happenned more often than I liked despite us doing everything right. Ok, almost everything. Ninety percent of our downtime was telco related. It was a rural ISP spread out across most of one state dealing with 5 or 6 telcos. I really wanted a DNS / outbound SMTP server in each PoP but couldn't cost justify it. If you want a load balancer, and they are cheap, why not put one in each regional hub and have several smaller clusters? -- Scott Lambert KC5MLE Unix SysAdmin lambert@lambertfam.org