Charles,
for a "no IO lost" solution on EMC Symmetrix, I can highly recommend EMC
SRDF/CE 2.2. This is a Geocluster solution.
It uses EMC SRDF/S technology to ensure all data is synchronised (to the IO
level). You can built your cluster, half of the nodes in your primary
datacenter, half of the nodes in your secondary datacenter.
It will failover your cluster to your secondary datacenter (to the
un-trained eye, it is *just* a cluster)
AND
It will failback your cluster to your primary, as simple as clicking "move
group" in Cluster Administrator, once your primary site is back up, disaster
over.
I don't think it will tie in with your VMWare limitation, but for a High
transacting db (as you mention several thousands of transactions per second)
I am not sure if a virtual server would cope with that anyway.
I have been running many SRDF/CE solutions for several years, but to be
fair: I have not ran other geocluster solutions, so my opinion is probably
biassed a bit. If your are not running EMC Symmetrix storage, then this
solution could be a bit costly, as a minimum you need two Symmetrix storage
units and obviously the FC-fabrics and FC interconnects between the two
data-centers.
rgds,
Edwin.
[quoted text, click to view] "Charles Deaton" <sqldba@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1168532249.017203.57740@77g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
> We are starting to look into a high availability solution to ensure
> operation of our business in the event of a localized disaster
> (i.e.. building fire). We are planning on a remote site, maybe
> 25 miles away, that will provide virtual servers and resources via
> VMWare. We will need, among other things, to have a warm
> stand by MSSQL 2000 server up and running. I'm aware of the
> common solution such as log shipping, mirroring in 2005 and
> replication. We do not want to upgrade to 2005 so mirroring is
> not an option. We will need to be able to fail back to the primary
> MSSQL server with little or no intervention when the disaster
> has been resolved so replication is not an option. Our databases
> are used for a hybrid OLTP system with several thousand
> transactions per second. Data loss needs to be kept to a
> minimum. Failover and fail back should be seamless
> (No data loss except opened transactions?).
>
> We are looking at DoubleTake, NeverFail, XOSoft and
> Goldengate products. It seems like some play better with
> VMWare than others. We have not looked closely at Symantec,
> EMC or SteelEye but am aware of that they offer possible
> solutions as well.
>
> If anyone has any hands on experience with a solution similar
> to what we are looking into we would appreciate your comments.
>
> Thanks,
> Charles Deaton
>