Need of urgent help with website server

[overdrivemachines]

Hi
I have two servers running Red Hat 3.4.6-11 CentOS release 4.8 (Final); lets call them dev1 and dev2.
Dev1 is running a website which uses tomcat and oracle and other software that Im unaware of. Dev1 is going to go offline because it needs some maintenance. So, while dev1 is offline, I want dev2 to do the job. I have access to dev1 and dev2 through putty since they are at a different location in town. What steps can I take to make this happen?

[meton_magis]

setting up a failover cluster is probably beyond the level of help you should expect to get for free off of a community forum (most disaster recovery jobs pay in the 6 digit range), but the easiest way (assuming everything works right) would be to switch the ip addresses so your secondary node apears as the primary node. If everything is setup properly, everyone should see the secondary node, and not notice anything. Some users would probably be disconnected though, and have to resetup sessions.

This is all way above my ability, I'm just giving you a vague Idea of how it's done. This is something that usualy takes MANY hours of testing, and usualy people who know quite a bit about the technology, hence the 6 digit salaries.


Good luck with it though, let us know if you find some gem of a resource on the issue.

[overdrivemachines]

Thank you for your response.
I just need to get this done with the least amount of effort. I dont really need a failover cluster as such. I just want to transfer stuff from one server to another. I want to know what all software the website is using on that server and how to configure it on the other server.

[meton_magis]

that's quite a task.

I wish I could help you more, but it's an extremely involved task, and would require a good knowledge of *nix, and quite a bit of time / testing.

You will need to know what services are required of the system, and get all of them running on the secondary node, then do the switchover.

Don't think of the stuff as applications, they are services. If you have the functionality you require, it's good. If something isn't being delivered, it's not good.