[Zope] Static fail-over

[Terry Hancock]

Thanks for all the enthusiastic replies!  Some of
them sounded pretty scary, though, with load
balancers and what not. :O I wasn't very explicit,
but this is a small (one server) operation!  Still,
it's very interesting to look at those options,
in case we do grow that big.

Two specific replies...

Chris McDonough wrote:
> Use Squid, set caching headers on all of your pages, and spider the site
> each time you bring it up. 

Hmm. That would be a new piece of software, but this
might justify using it. I assume from what little I've
heard that squid would install between Zserver and
Apache in the request stream, and mostly handle caching.

I like the idea of the site looking unchanged. Of
course, the dynamic stuff would just fail, but I
can probably find a way around that.

I too would be interested in the configuration options
you'd need for this.

Tim Wilson wrote:
> Why not just back up your Data.fs frequently? You'll only
> lose as much
> work as has been done since the last backup.

This is of course a good idea, and we do that, but it's
not the data I'm worried about losing, it's face.  The
problem is, that during the downtime my site would
look terrible (i.e. probably just a 404 Error).  In a
skittish market, this can have a dreadful effect on
the confidence of users, customers, partners, etc.

I'm thinking of maybe just creating a better error
page for Apache, and maybe pursuing the Squid option
as an upgrade.

Thanks again!

-- 
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Terry Hancock
hancock@anansispaceworks.com       
Anansi Spaceworks                 
http://www.anansispaceworks.com 
P.O. Box 60583                     
Pasadena, CA 91116-6583
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