Building a Castle ( VLANs and LVS )
Uptime is King when it comes to any network service; so I like to think of the Linux Virtual Server Project (LVS) as the castle protecting the King. As with any castle, you want to keep it organized and clean, the Dark Ages were such a messy time. So the castle is organized into rooms for specific tasks, just like a network might be organized into different VLANs . Each VLAN being dedicated to a specific network function, now add the complexity of keeping each room safe inside the castle, despite having doors, windows and the occasional secret passage, and you can begin to understand the possible complications of clustering services which run on VLANs inside of Linux.
However, if you are able to sort this ball of tangled chain mail and get things working, you can be handsomely rewarded with gold and riches (slightly embellishing). What you will get however, is the ability to provide clustered services to ANY TCP/UDP service running across ANY VLAN in your network. Not a bad deal if you are willing to put up with some headaches when you start out.
Tags: Clustering, Linux, LVS, Uptime, VLANs
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