SQL Server high availability. Log shipping or replication, clustering or some other solution. It's a challenge and as companies grow more dependent on their databases, it's one that more and more DBAs face everyday. Paul Ibison has taken a look at how log shipping and replication can be compared in the quest for high availability.   Read more...

In this next article of the SQL Server in the Enterprise Series, we'll explore how to cluster Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000 in a step-by-step manner. After this article, you should be able to cluster a SQL Server 2000 machine for failover availability in an Active/Active cluster.   Read more...

Learn about 13 production disasters that can bring down your business  Read more...

In response to an editorial on eliminating tape in favor of disk backups, new author Tim OPry brings us a look at his environment and the process by which they eliminated the need for tape in their backup scheme while maintaining a well thought out disaster plan.   Read more...

While no disaster recovery plan provides ironclad protection, your company will be far less vulnerable to an extended business disruption from a disaster with a plan than without one.  Read more...

In the first part of his series on SQL Server Availability, new author Kumar Parthasarathi brings us a look at Database Snapshots in SQL Server 2005.   Read more...

Learn how to use ALERTs, a SQL Agent job and a stored procedure (SP) to create a copy of your critical database backups on another physical machine as soon as the database backups are created.  Read more...

Knowing how to configure backup applications and select backup media is half the battle of designing a successful backup strategy. The other half is choosing how and when to back up the specific pieces of data that are stored on your servers, share points, and workstations. In this final article of his series on backup basics for new technicians and administrators, Ryan Faas offers some suggestions to help you make these important decisions.  Read more...

SQL Server high availability. Log shipping or replication, clustering or some other solution. It's a challenge and as companies grow more dependent on their databases, it's one that more and more DBAs face everyday. Paul Ibison has taken a look at how log shipping and replication can be compared in the quest for high availability.   Read more...

Every DBA needs to know how to do their work under pressure, while facing crisis after crisis. Our most important contribution is to keep the database running. It's an on-call function; you never know what might happen  Read more...

This article by Andy Warren includes code samples showing you how to restore a database from a file or a device backup.   Read more...

Differential backups are left out of many DBAs backup strategy, but they are a great tool to shrink your backup window, save disk space, and more. However they can be slightly tricky when you look to perform a restore. New author Qian Ye brings us an interesting issue that occured during differential testing.   Read more...

Everyone wants a highly available system, but achieving 4 or 5 9s of uptime is hard to do. Especially when you have cost limitations. New author Mark Cook takes a look at how his company analyzed the challenges and which method they chose along with some implementation details.   Read more...

Not the traditional overview here. Steve Jones takes a look at the various high availability technologies from a different perspective.   Read more...

Disaster recovery solutions is always a concern with SQL Server and when a new or unique solution comes up, we like to get it out there. New author Kevin Parks brings us a look at his way of using a USB hard drive and Windows PE to ensure recovery.   Read more...

Ensuring the availability of your database servers is becoming more important all the time. Fortunately you have more choices than ever. Bilal Ahmed looks at some of the possible solutions available for SQL Server.   Read more...

Testing is key to ensuring a process actually works when it comes time to implement, rather than finding out when time may be of the essence. This holds true for testing SQL Server restores as well.   Read more...

Building a highly fault tolerant and available SQL Server is expensive and difficult. This brings about unique challenges for small businesses who often lack the resources of large enterprises. Bilal Ahmed and Shivan Bindal discuss the various ways of building redundancy and the challenges of each.   Read more...

Building a highly available system is hard. This short white paper from Sonasoft shows some of the differences between a cluster and their standby server product.   Read more...

The second installment of this series discussed the cost of maintaining systems with various levels of downtime, ways data can be lost, and what constitutes a backup. In this installment, I discuss how to configure your hardware to minimize the need to restore a backup.   Read more...

In response to an editorial on eliminating tape in favor of disk backups, new author Tim OPry brings us a look at his environment and the process by which they eliminated the need for tape in their backup scheme while maintaining a well thought out disaster plan.   Read more...

In the first part of his series on SQL Server Availability, new author Kumar Parthasarathi brings us a look at Database Snapshots in SQL Server 2005.   Read more...

Not the traditional overview here. Steve Jones takes a look at the various high availability technologies from a different perspective.   Read more...