Which is the best server load balancing option ?

Hi all,

We are colocating few servers and looking for best server load balancing
option. All servers are running same website on Redhat 8.0 and access
mysql database from a seperate mysql database server.

I am using a firewall/vpn router as hardware firewall.This firewall
offeres rule based policies to block or open services etc. behind this
is a switch (unmanaged) with connections to all servers.

My quesiton is what is the best way to load balance servers as all are
running same website. I heard about round robin method. But how do we do
this ? is there a manageble switch which does this ? I saw layer 2 /
layer 3 manageble switch but i do not know which one does this ?

Your suggestions are greatly appreciated.

> We are colocating few servers and looking for best server load balancing
> option. All servers are running same website on Redhat 8.0 and access
> mysql database from a seperate mysql database server.
>
> I am using a firewall/vpn router as hardware firewall.This firewall
> offeres rule based policies to block or open services etc. behind this
> is a switch (unmanaged) with connections to all servers.
>
> My quesiton is what is the best way to load balance servers as all are
> running same website. I heard about round robin method. But how do we do
> this ? is there a manageble switch which does this ? I saw layer 2 /
> layer 3 manageble switch but i do not know which one does this ?
>
> Your suggestions are greatly appreciated.

The easiest and cheapest is to use DNS round-robbin, where your DNS
server will answer requests with multiple A records (IP addresses). If
you want to get fancier, look into something like
http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org .

steve