I am using Archlinux as a server for my infrastructure. Does anyone have experience with ignoring kernel upgrades on Archlinux for a while? If so, how do you decide on what kernel release you are staying? If you upgrade the kernel, have you found a way to circumvent having to restart the machine?
Look into HAProxy. It will load balance traffic between servers based on your preference, and can be configured to detect when 1 server is down, thus keeping your service active when 1 server goes down.