"Sue Hoegemeier" <Sue_H@nomail.please> wrote in message
news:vbkm53lfq2197a3ah6tfasd2q2ie875n62@4ax.com...
> Log shipping is another option for maintaining a warm
> standby. You can write your own and don't necessarily need
> to be using SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition. That edition
> just gives you a GUI to setup and monitor the log shipping.
> There are other options - depending on the business needs.
> This article does a good job of going though the different
> options and their advantages, disadvantages:
> http://vyaskn.tripod.com/maintaining_standby_sql_server.htm
>
> -Sue
>
> On Mon, 28 May 2007 16:34:34 -0400, "Brad Pears"
> <bradp@truenorthloghomes.com> wrote:
>
>>I am not sure exactly which newsgroup to post this to so I will ask here
>>with the hopes that someone either can answer or at least point me to a
>>better newsgroup to pose the question.
>>
>>We have a single SQL Server 2000 server machine. We are increasingly
>>adding
>>more and more db's and applications and more and more users are depending
>>on
>>this data being available. We have a sales force and dealers that access
>>the
>>data remotely 24/7 from varios time zones. Now I am starting to think in
>>terms of data availability - making sure that if the server goes down or
>>we
>>need to take the server offline for any period of time, we can move the
>>db's
>>over either manually or automatically to another server. We do also have a
>>Win2K small business server that includes SQL server - and it is really
>>sitting idle so we could use that machine as the backup SQL server in a
>>pinch. Then we'd have to repoint all users to the new machine which would
>>allow them to be back up and running again in a decent time frame. Then
>>when
>>we are back online with the actual SQL Server, the db would have to be
>>migrated back over....
>>
>>There are a couple of options I am thinking...
>>
>>1) to implement a complete failover system so that if one server goes
>>down,
>>up comes the other one almost instantly? I doubt we really need to go to
>>this level but perhaps someone could elaborate on exactly what
>>hardware/software would be needed to implement such a scheme. I am
>>thinking
>>Win2K3 R2 DFS or a Doubletake solution?
>>
>>2) Manually backup and restore from one machine to the other and back
>>again
>>when the other machine is back on line. This would mean that if the SQL
>>server went down in the afternoon, and we were unable to access the drives
>>for whatever reason, we would have to restore from the previous nights SQL
>>server backup (on disk). meaning a loss of almost a full days work
>>potentially..
>>
>>What other options are there out there? What have other folks been doing?
>>Should we be backing up transaction logs every hour possibly? That way we
>>could restore from previous night and then play back all the transaction
>>logs to get current within an hour at least...
>>
>>Thanks, Brad
>>
>