Round-Robin Technique – an Alternative to Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is an expensive option and not all businesses can afford it, particularly if it is startup stage. The main benefit of a dedicated IP is its reliability, but the question is – can you really afford having a dedicated hosting? If not, there are some other options as well. One such option is DNS round-robin technique.
The system is so configured that whenever a DNS (Domain Name Service) request is encountered, round-robin technique allows selecting and providing a random IP address from a pre-defined pool of addresses. In hosting, DNS maps your domain name to the IP address so that users just use the URL to access a website. This process takes time, sometimes 1-2 days. The round-robin technique maps your domain name to multiple IP addresses.
If the system notices that one of your IP is returning an error, or not working for some reasons, it immediately looks for alternative IPs. This ensures that your site is always online even if one IP is down. When this IP gets available, it is restored back to the pool of IPs and is again available to associate with your domain name.
This process of switching over to another IP takes a few minutes though it depends on certain factors such as speed of your site, speed of network connection, and the reason of failure, and so on.
So, having uptime of 99.9999% is not a mere dream, technology has made it possible. It all boils down to your budget, and whether your host provides this kind of services.
