SQL Server Failover Solutions
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Opinions please on the best failover solution for SQL Server.
I am aware of a number of software packages that provide failover but I don't know what is the tried and trusted failover solution. I am also aware of SQL Clustering and Log Shipping but have never used a failover before.
Regards
Carl
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Please define what you believe to be a failover situation.
MG
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Tony Hoare"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
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My definition of a failover solution is if you have a live sql server and a failover server and the live server fails, the failover server would assume the role of the live server.
Regards
Carl
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I guess I needed to be more "definite"
. What is the time frame for failover? Do you require High Availability (this would be a cluster where failover is automatic and almost immediate), or is there a time frame in which a secondary server in a log shipping scenario can be recovered to a last log shipped? There are, of course, other scenarios and solutions but I believe the two I mentioned are the most common.
MG
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Tony Hoare"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
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We would need the high availability option.
I had initially seen a product called NSI-Double Take but have decided against it as it seems a bit flaky.
I would possibly be looking at providing a 2 to 1 failover solution with the 2 live SQL Servers failing over to a 3rd server but am unsure the best way to do it.
I have read that SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition can be Clustered (max 2 nodes) which I believe would suit our purposes.
From what you are saying log shipping is not an automatic failover and requires manual intervention?
Regards
Carl
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Log shipping does require some manual intervention.
My experience with 2 way clusters for HA has been positive. In most cases, if the active node goes down, the failover to the passive was fairly quick (under 1 minute). It also makes maintenance fairly easy. Patch the passive and then failover and patch the remaining node.
That being said, we did log ship the clusters for DR.
MG
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Tony Hoare"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
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Here too we use active/passive clustering for HA and log shipping (custom built) for DR
Terry
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We currently have 2 SQL Servers that I would like to provide HA failover for.
Would I be correct in assuming that we could failover each server to one another in an active/active cluster?
Server1 failover to Server2
and
Server2 failover to Server1
Carl
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Yes - you can have an active/active arrangement. Just be sure to factor in performance degradation when you are trying to balance the nodes and determine how much is acceptable.
MG
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Tony Hoare"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
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