There are many ways to perform disaster recovery with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Based upon customer experience and internal testing, this technical note provides guidance around best practices to design and manage robust end-to-end disaster recovery (DR). This DR method will involve both automatic and manual failover in the form of content switches, SQL Server failover clustering, and database mirroring. This case study focuses on the lessons learned from CareGroup Healthcare System.  Read more...

The DBA news of the week contains some interesting thoughts on DR and virtualization plans. Steve Jones comments on why you should care about these topics.  Read more...

This article describes how to use Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or Microsoft SQL Server 2008 log shipping to create a disaster recovery farm in a geographically distributed data center for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Service Pack 2 (SP2). By using this configuration, you can provide a disaster recovery site that provides current search results when a failover occurs. The article assumes that you are familiar with the concepts and terms presented in Plan for availability (Office SharePoint Server).  Read more...

Part 2 of the SQL Server Essentials Series looks at why you should be using the Full Recovery Model to protect your data assets.  Read more...

High-Availability depends on how quickly you can recover a production system after an incident that has caused a failure. This requires planning, and documentation. If you get a Disaster Recovery Plan wrong, it can make an incident into a catastrophe for the business. Hugo Shebbeare discusses some essentials, describes a typical system, and provides sample documentation.  Read more...

Rodney Landrum has lived through several simulated emergencies and one real one, in the form of Hurricane Ivan. The tests do not adequately prepare you for the real thing. Real emergencies bring tension, exhaustion and hunger pangs. Simulations bring lethargy, pre-determined end times, and warm pizza.  Read more...

Many articles on database administration take the perspective of trying to help you do your job better. We thought we might take a different tack and poke a little fun at some of more egregious mistakes we've seen over the years at IT shops.   Read more...

Let's say it is a late Monday morning, because something always comes up before you are required at your vocation,...  Read more...

James DiMauro brings us a story of how a transaction log was deleted and then recreated. (from July 2008)  Read more...

Disaster Recovery is always ranked by DBAs and managers as one of the most important things to have set up. Yet many people working with databases don't spend time on this. Steve Jones has a few comments from the news this week.  Read more...

We discovered a need to compress our backups so that we could copy the files over the network to the DR location (log shipping), to save on transfer time during emergency restores.   Read more...

Two sets of scripts to help setup mirroring or remove mirroring - handy during disaster recovery exercise  Read more...

Are tape systems obsolete? A recent incident has Steve Jones thinking perhaps not.  Read more...

Are tape systems obsolete? A recent incident has Steve Jones thinking perhaps not.  Read more...

Are tape systems obsolete? A recent incident has Steve Jones thinking perhaps not.  Read more...

Are tape systems obsolete? A recent incident has Steve Jones thinking perhaps not.  Read more...

I joined in late to a conference call this morning from Quest where a number of their experts were talking about various disaster stories that they'd experienced over the years. It's great to hear real DBAs talking about the problems and challenges...  Read more...

In a previous tip on Disaster Recovery Procedures in SQL Server 2005 Part 1, we have seen how we can come up with a disaster recovery procedure in SQL Server 2005. There are other ways to increase availability of your highly critical database in SQL Server 2005. What are those other options?  Read more...

Dealing with a disaster is a trying experience for anyone, but having to then worry about having the proper software installed can make things much worse. Steve Jones talks a bit about the challenges of worrying about software versions.  Read more...

Dealing with a disaster is a trying experience for anyone, but having to then worry about having the proper software installed can make things much worse. Steve Jones talks a bit about the challenges of worrying about software versions.  Read more...

High-Availability depends on how quickly you can recover a production system after an incident that has caused a failure. This requires planning, and documentation. If you get a Disaster Recovery Plan wrong, it can make an incident into a catastrophe for the business. Hugo Shebbeare discusses some essentials, describes a typical system, and provides sample documentation.  Read more...

James DiMauro brings us a story of how a transaction log was deleted and then recreated. (from July 2008)  Read more...

Reduce your recovery time and minimize the chance for error by resolving all logins in one script.  Read more...