What is IP failover and why is it useful?

02.07.2020 3,983 6

Martin Deshev

These days having a website is an absolute must for every company and organization. For most of them the site is simply a business card. But for some, their website is vital for their business and has to work constantly at optimal efficiency. Sadly, while technology does bring a lot of value and benefits, it can also malfunction.

And when your server or host has an issue, the service of IP failover can be of big help. It’s a simple, yet useful service which has a lot of benefits for hosting providers, dedicated servers and other cloud services and their clients.

What is IP failover?

Failover IPs are basically moveable IPs from one server to another. Users can switch them over within a few minutes from their consoles. This allows them to keep their site operating without major or long-term interruptions.

The IP failover usually allows you to seamlessly switch to another server or system. This can be used either manually or automatically, depending on your hosting or cloud provider and your preferences.

What are its uses?

You can use an IP failover in various cases. If it’s automated, you can make it so that the system automatically switches to a backup server in the event of a malfunction. Another use is to move an IP from one host to another for bare metal cloud servers. This way you can move about without changing everything every time. Or you can make virtual machines and use failover IP configurations for them to ease your work and configuration.

When you use a manual IP failover feature, this is a way to easily move to a new server when you change it or upgrade it. Depending on the provider, these IPs can also move between datacenters within the same network. As you can imagine, this brings a lot of possibilities for your setup and configuration.

Another option is to use it for hosting multiple projects over more than one server. For example, you can switch over some of the sites to a more powerful server when the load gets higher.

Basically, IP failovers allow for plenty of use cases to spread server load, reduce service interruption times and improve flexibility during various situations. It’s a service that’s not very popular now, but as the usage of cloud services and dedicated servers rise, it’s gaining interest.

And it’s well deserved as it’s cheap (usually with a low monthly fee or a one-time fee for single uses) and easy to use. If you have that option by your provider, do check it out.