i have some webservers with 1and1 with locally hosted mysql databases and i am looking to get a dedicated database server. my problem is do i get them hosted with 1and1 aswell or will it make much difference in performance if i had them at rackspace?
you want your db servers as close as possible to the web-servers for fastest and most reliable page render speed - if your web-server hits an external remote server, not good unless you have to...
Hosting both servers within the same DC is recommended. This was you can ensure that the latency between them is minimal. Have both servers setup with 2 nics, one for the the outside internet coming in, and one between each other, so they can use that to talk.
Yes, try to place a load balance server ahead of your webservers and database server. Set traffic routing rules on this load balanced server for better performance also its recommended to have a private LAN connect between databases & webservers for optimum performance.
RHS-Chris is right. Host your both servers in the same datacenter and connecting each other over LAN. How can you set a load balancer a head of 2 servers when one is web server and the other is database server?