Take Sitefinity to the next level with Web Farming

Currently on version 12.2, Sitefinity has proven to be a reliable CMS but it can only do so much on its own. Web farming Sitefinity can accomplish more and improve your users experience.

Web farming is distributed hosting. Your web traffic would be directed to a load balancer that relays those requests to any of the appropriate virtual machines in Vanguard’s infrastructure. What are the benefits of web farming? 

Scalability

The most obvious advantage to load balancing is the ability to add or remove recourses on the fly. The resources of each virtual machine are fixed, while your user demand fluctuates.  When that demand exceeds what’s available, there is a possibility that Sitefinity could go down. During periods of high traffic like special events or conferences, new virtual machines can be spun up to handle the additional load.  The load balancer can be configured to direct traffic to these new resources in real time, so your users never see an interruption in service.

Security

Backend access to Sitefinity can be disabled.  With multiple instances running, you can choose to allow the public access only to those disabled nodes and add another layer of security to the node that can make edits.

Up-time

With technology, sometimes things happen. Even if Sitefinity is working perfectly, servers require maintenance, the OS may need to recompile your site or changes may need to happen that interrupt service.  If Sitefinity is running without a load balancer, all of these examples result in downtime of your website. If the issue is serious, your site may be down for hours or longer. A load balancer is designed with fail over capability.  Once configured, the load balancer can detect issues, direct traffic away from the troubled virtual machine then restore traffic once the server is restored to working order.

Longevity

Web farming brings a more modular approach to your web infrastructure.  Configuration makes it easier for older devices to be replaced by newer virtual machine. Other hosting options like App Services can more easily integrated into your infrastructure. This means DNS updates are minimized.

We, at Vanguard, think Sitefinity is a great CMS.  It can reach its full potential with the right hosting configuration. If you have any questions regarding web farming or Sitefinity, feel free to reach out to your Client Services Manager.