6109R and Cluster Support

Aventurin{e} 6109R and Cluster Support:

Aventurin{e} 6105R, 6106R and 6108R did have optional active/passive Cluster support via DRBD and Heartbeat. Upon ISO install you had the choice of setting up stand alone or with cluster-support configured. If installed on two nodes (and after linking the nodes to a cluster) this provided Aventurin{e} VPS's with high availability and automatic fail over capability for VPS's.

Back in the days this was a pretty interesting approach to provide solid uptimes and in fact some clients are still happily running their 6108R Clusters.

However: Aventurin{e} 6109R will not have cluster support. We decided against it, because technology has moved on and in this time and age hardware is usually so solid, that you rather get an unplanned downtime due to hiccups with the clustering itself than due to hardware damages on a node.

Even if clustering is still a very viable option in some scenarios (and it is!), the hardware you need to throw at the problem in order to do it right goes beyond a simple setup of two Aventurin{e} nodes. We do have that kind of clients who operate cluster halves in different data centers with portable IP addresses from the same ASN and their own routers. However, a better utilization involves several (active) nodes with a backup onto a clustered storage and dynamic activation of the VPS's on the node that should carry the load.

Offering a clustered Aventurin{e} put us into the awkward position that clients had expectations which a simple dual-node active/passive cluster couldn't deliver, as they actually needed something more complex. To avoid this kind of confusion and to also cut down on the developmental overhead the clustered version of Aventurin{e} is therefore being retired for good.