Q: multiple backends

[Denis Brækhus]

----- Florian Schulze <florian.schulze at gmx.net> wrote:
> > A huge step would be to have even a basic facility for multiple
> > backends, like round-robin or weighted round-robin (which should
> > theoretically be the easiest models to implement as they require
> > little in the way of monitoring of the backends?).
> > Having such an option would enable people to setup simple
> > fault-tolerance and would increase the usability of Varnish a lot.
> > More advanced models of dividing the load on the backends are (very)
> > nice to have features imho, the big leap is any functionality at
> > all.
> > Of course this is all purely my humble opinion.
> Why don't you use a dedicated load balancer for this? SOmething like
> HAProxy.

Of course there are quite a few alternatives, both software and hardware, open source and proprietary. However Varnish is currently positioned to be placed as near the end user as possible, and having the option of not implementing a separate layer in the design for this kind of functionality would be excellent, both reducing complexity and possible points of failure / bugs.

As previously discussed, other reverse proxies (like nginx and Perlbal) implement such functionality in some form or another (Perlbal being the most advanced of the two it seems). 

I would very much like to have simple loadbalancing built into Varnish instead of having to rely on an additional 3rd party solution in all setups.

Regards
-- 
Denis Braekhus - Teknisk Ansvarlig ABC Startsiden AS
http://www.startsiden.no