Planning - Good method for Quick recovery of MS server 2008 with SQL database in event of total server failure?
I have a local MS 2008 server running a SQL database. It is running RAID 5 with SAS drives. I have machinery that is dependent on this server to have high availability. If this server has a total melt down (failed motherboard, lightening strike, flooding, etc) after 2 or 3 hours it will start costing me $1,000 + per hour in lost productivity. I have another building that can house a 2nd server within 200 feet and can connect it together with Ethernet cable or fiber and house a 2nd server. Our internet connection is slow DSL. What are some solutions please? (mirrored servers or ???) All information and detail is appreciated.
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Make sure, too, that existing users automatically go to the new server or have an easy way to access the new server in the event the old one fails. It would be extremely frustrating to have perfect cloning of data and not be able to actually use it!
How much data loss can you afford? 2 hrs? 1 hr? 15 min? None? In general, the less time, the more it will cost :-).
How much data loss can you afford? 2 hrs? 1 hr? 15 min? None? In general, the less time, the more it will cost :-).
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We can actually afford to lose 1 day of data and we do backup our database nightly. But if we had to do a complete restore it would be very time consuming and right now we don't have a 2nd server. So....if something happened today we would order a server, wait for it to arrive and do a bare metal restore - very time consuming. The lose of data is not the big issue, the bigger issue is the manufacturing machines that receive jobs from the server. After about 2 hours of down time it starts costing us a lot of $$$$ because we have to shut down manufacturing. Hope that helps and if you have specific recommendations/solutions please let me know. If I can provide more information please ask questions.
I'd recommend log shipping. You can use the built-in SQL log shipping, or you could start with a version of your own.
ASKER
So....purchase another computer identical to the one in use or could this be done with a virtual server? Then nightly do SQL log shipping? Am I on the right path??? Would I need to purchase another server license and SQL license?
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Thanks for all your input, very helpful! Lew
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