Best Solution For HA and Network Load Balancing?

supaneko writes "I am working with a non-profit that will eventually host a massive online self-help archive and community (using FTP and HTTP services). We are expecting 1,000+ unique visitors / day. I know that having only one server to serve this number of people is not a great idea, so I began to look into clusters. After a bit of reading I determined that I am looking for high availability, in case of hardware fault, and network load balancing, which will allow the load to be shared among the two to six servers that we hope to purchase. What I have not been able to determine is the 'perfect' solution that would offer efficiency, ease-of-use, simple maintenance, enjoyable performance, and a notably better experience when compared to other setups. Reading about Windows 2003 Clustering makes the whole process sounds easy, while Linux and FreeBSD just seem overly complicated. But is this truly the case? What have you all done for clustering solutions that worked out well? What key features should I be aware for successful cluster setup (hubs, wiring, hardware, software, same servers across the board, etc.)?"

Comments

If I post this at the top, will anyone see it?

[supaneko]

First off, I wanted to mention that the 1000 is off by two zeroes. It should read 100,000. Secondly, for those of you who have not provided anything constructive, I give to you the one-fingered salute. It's amazing how much crap and how many assholes exist on this forum. All I wanted was some CONSTRUCTIVE advice and it seems like the majority of what I got was a bunch of bickering and a load of insults. Bleh... But to those who have actually posted some useful comments...I THANK YOU. :) Your insight has been helpful and for the most part, confirmed what I had planned already.