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sql server clustering : High availability, VMWare and remote sites.
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
Use bi-directional transactional replication. Change your identity seeds to
odd on one side, even on the other. This way you never have to worry about failing over or failing back and synchronization as both sides are live simultaneously. The only issue with this is client re-direction in the event of a failover. -- Hilary Cotter Looking for a SQL Server replication book? http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602.html Looking for a FAQ on Indexing Services/SQL FTS http://www.indexserverfaq.com [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 >
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 >
What Edwin is referring to is termed "stretch clustering." We too have been
running Remote Disk Mirrors successfully with only bandwidth issues as the down side. In stretch clustering, you will need to maintain a "warm" DR site and is built on top of remote mirroring. With remote mirroring alone, you can maintain a "cold" site. You could also run SRDF/A (asynchronous). This overcomes some of the disk mirroring bottlenecks with only a minor increase in risk for data loss (it allows 1 pending IO in the queue without remote commit instead of dual commit associated with synchronous mode). Do not let any storage managers/technicians sell you on the idea of Adaptive Copy. The technology does NOT preserve the write-ordering necessary to maintain the WAL (write ahead logging) protocol necessary to maintain database transaction ACID properties. You will not be able to SAN replicate if one host is real and the remote host is virtual. SQL Server 2000 High Availability Series Implementing Remote Mirroring and Stretch Clustering http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2000/deploy/hasog05.mspx Requirements for SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2000 to support remote mirroring of user databases http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910716 Best of luck. Sincerely, Anthony Thomas -- [quoted text, click to view] "Edwin vMierlo" <EdwinvMierlo@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:%23IQ144ZNHHA.1252@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl... > 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. > > > "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 > > > >
SteelEye works great with Physical to Virtual clustering of SQL Server.
If you contact us, we can give you great SQL Server reference accounts. David A. Bermingham, MCSE, MCSA:Messaging Senior Systems Engineer www.steeleye.com [quoted text, click to view] Charles Deaton wrote:
> 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
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