Alternative Host (by DNS?) for Web Server Failure Protection

Question

I'm interested in having a second web host run a copy of my website, such that if my first host goes down, the traffic routes to the second host. Is this possible?

My guess would be to add additional nameservers beyond the first two.

I also suspect it's doable with no-ip.com, but I'm not clear on how that works, and if they would require me to leave my first host entirely?

Answer 1

See if your DNS provider will let you do round robbin DNS.

Basically, DNS queries will return more than one IP for your site. Try nslookup google.com to see how it might look.

There are loads of other ways to do geographical load balancing and failover (most are expensive though).

Answer 2

DNS Made Easy provides this service, which is called DNS Failover. For others looking:

http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/s0306/price/dns.html