High Availability Roadmap

Last modified: August 10, 2022

Overview

In this roadmap document we describe the features and release model of the cPanel & WHM® High Availability (HA) product initiative. We will use the Kubernetes container orchestration platform to manage containerized clusters of DNS, database, and web servers.

Note:

The cPanel & WHM HA architecture relies on a Network File System (NFS) for synchronizing user accounts across multiple servers.
Server administrators will, at least initially, be responsible for setup and maintenance of their NFS file service.

We will provide configuration assistance (a guide or Help interface) as each feature is delivered. We will deliver these feature upgrades as packages across multiple releases of WHM & cPanel, as shown in the table below.

Partner Early Access: Q4 - 2022 (v110)

We will deliver partner-preview packages of the cluster system as part of the delivery schedule.

HA Roadmap

Initiative features

The cPanel & WHM High-Availability initiative has three separate-but-integrated functions: DNS support, database support, and web server support. As our research and development continues, we will update this roadmap with direction and information for each initiative feature listed.

HA Functional Diagram

Website replication

The cPanel & WHM HA Apache®-based Web Server feature will provide a web service for each user that will manage all web sites belonging to that user. Each web service will manage multiple pods spread across multiple node servers (nodes) for redundancy. Each pod is capable of servicing all of a user’s sites.

For instance, Bob, who runs bobs-tools.com and bobs-shoes.com, will have one web service that manages both of his web sites. This web service will have two (or more) pods spread across two (or more) nodes. The web service will divide surfers who navigate to one of Bob’s sites among all of the server nodes that serve Bob’s web pods.

cPanel & WHM will ensure synchronization of a user’s web servers by mounting the same user home directory across all of a user’s pods via NFS. Thus, uploads to one pod will propagate to the rest of the servers in real time.

SQL high availability solution

Reliable data availability is an important aspect of every database administrator’s life. We need to minimize and mitigate the issues related to database unavailability. In the production environment, we want to achieve the RPO and RTO goals of a highly-available production database service.

DNS load balancing

Load balancing is the practice of distributing traffic across more than one server to improve performance and availability. Organizations use different forms of load balancing to speed up both websites and private networks. Without load balancing, most internet applications and websites would not handle traffic effectively or function correctly.

DNS-based load balancing is a specific type of load balancing that uses DNS to distribute traffic across several servers. It does this by providing different IP addresses in response to DNS queries. Load balancers can use various methods or rules for choosing which IP address to share in response to a DNS query.

Configuration guide

We will create a configuration guide to help users configure a high-availability server. This guide will help users set up HA solutions for their file storage system, database servers, and DNS servers.

Feedback

Join the conversation! Have questions? Want to know more?

Join us on Discord or contact our High Availability team.