Course Topics

Administering SQL Server 2012 Jump Start

01 | Install and Configure SQL
Server

04 | Manage Data

02 | Maintain Instances and

Databases

05 | Implement Security

03 | Performance Optimization and

Troubleshooting

06 | High Availability Options

Click to edit
Master subtitle
style

06 | High Availability Options

George Squillace | Senior Technical Trainer New Horizons Great
Lakes
Richard Currey | Senior Technical Trainer New Horizons United

Module 6 Overview
What Is High Availability?
Replication
Log Shipping
Mirroring
AlwaysOn
Failover Clustering

Topic: What Is High Availability?

Topic: What Is High Availability (HA)?

Redundancy of some kind
Protection against media failure
Replication
Log Shipping
Database Mirroring
AlwaysOn

Protection against hardware or physical server failure

Failover Clustering

Sometimes a combination of HA technologies are

used together

Topic: Replication

Topic: Replication
The Basics
Types of Replication
Implementing Replication
Replication Strengths and Weaknesses

The Basics
Publisher / distributor / subscriber
Publication type
Select DB and article(s)

Table (complete or filtered)

Sproc
View
Indexed view
UDF (TVF)

Configure job schedules

Configure agent security

Types of Replication
Snapshot
Transactional
Transactional with
updateable
subscriptions
Merge

Implementing Replication
Multiple destinations
Separate IP subnets
Multiple job schedules
Multiple shared
folders
Witness optional
Manual failover

Replication Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Mature and stable

Flexible configuration options
No specialty hardware required
Can span data centers
Secondary database copies can be queried and potentially modified

Weaknesses
Manual client failover
Protects only data; does not protect schema, system tables and so
on
Can be difficult to repair
Configured on a per-database basis

DEMO
Implementing Replication

Topic: Log Shipping

Topic: Log Shipping

The Basics
Implementing Log Shipping
Failover Basics
Log Shipping Strengths
and Weaknesses

The Basics
Protects one user database at a
time
Uses a scheduled log backup job
of the primary database from
the primary server
Each secondary server uses a
scheduled file copy job to place
log backups nearby
Each secondary server uses a
scheduled log restore job to
restore to its secondary
database copy
Provides limited read-only
access to secondary database
copies

Implementing Log Shipping

SSMS
Stored procedures
o
o
o
o
o
o

sp_Add_Log_Shipping_Primary_Database
sp_Add_Job_Schedule
sp_Add_Log_Shipping_Secondary_Database
sp_Add_Log_Shipping_Alert_Job
sp_Add_Log_Shipping_Primary_Secondary
sp_Add_Log_Shipping_Secondary_Primary

Set DB recovery model full or bulk_logged

Create a backup job
Create copy job(s)
Create restore job(s)
Configure monitor (optional)

Failover Basics
Copy transaction log backups (if available)
Backup up primary database log with NORECOVERY
Restore primary database log on secondary server
with RECOVERY
Disable log shipping jobs
Configure log shipping on new primary server

Log Shipping Strengths and

Weaknesses

Strengths

Mature and stable

Multiple copy jobs and restore jobs each with different schedules for applying
restores
Not too difficult to initially configure or manage
No specialty hardware required
Can span data centers
Secondary database copies can be queried (but not modified)
Alert job can raise an alert if a backup or restore operation does not complete
within a threshold

Weaknesses
Manual failover
Configured on a per-database basis
Cant protect Master

DEMO
Implementing Log Shipping

Topic: Mirroring

Topic: Mirroring
The Basics
Configuration Options
Handling Failover
Mirroring Strengths and Weaknesses

The Basics
User database transactions
are live shipped to a single
secondary and applied
synchronously or
asynchronously
Depending on configuration,
database failover and
recovery can occur within ten
seconds with automatic client
redirection
Scope of protectionsingle
user database at a time

Configuration Options
Single mirror database copy
Three major configurations
High safety with automatic
failover
Witness required

High safety without automatic

failover
High performance (asynchronous
log hardening)

Full recovery model required

Endpoint configuration required
Port
Authentication
Encryption

Geographical spanning support

Mirroring Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Very fast and automatic database and client failover

Not too difficult to initially configure or manage
No specialty hardware required
Can span data centers

Weaknesses
Deprecated
Requires three servers in high-availability mode
Cannot query the mirrored database unless database snapshots are
implemented
Configured on a per-database basis
Does not protect system databases

DEMO
Implementing Database Mirroring

Topic: AlwaysOn

Topic: AlwaysOn
The Basics
Implementing AlwaysOn
AlwaysOn Failover
AlwaysOn Strengths and Weaknesses

The Basics
New feature in SQL Server 2012
Provides a failover environment for a set of databases that fail
together
A collection of primary replica databases support read-write
connections
A collection of secondary replica databases (up to four) support readonly connections
Requires a Windows Server failover
cluster
Synchronous-commit
and asynchronous-commit modes
Planned and automatic failover with

Implementing AlwaysOn
Each instance hosting an availability group must be a Windows Server (Enterprise
Edition) failover clustering node
Same collation on each instance
Enable the AlwaysOn availability groups feature on each instance (SQL Server
Configuration Manager or Windows PowerShell)
Run the new Availability Group Wizard

Add desired databases, full recovery model

Configure a database mirroring endpoint
Create an availability group listener
Specify replicas
Select an initial synchronization option
Full
Join only
Skip initial data synchronization

AlwaysOn Failover
Three failover modes
Automatic failover (without data loss)
Planned manual failover (without data loss)
Forced manual failover (with possible data loss)

During the failover, the failover target takes over the primary role,
recovers its databases, and brings them online as the new primary
databases
The former primary replica, when available, switches to the secondary
role, and its databases become secondary databases
The form(s) of failover that a given availability replica supports is
specified by the failover mode property
Synchronous-commit replicas
Asynchronous-commit replicas

AlwaysOn Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Very fast and automatic database and client failover

Very flexible configuration with multiple failover replicas
Read-only access to replicas
Can back up replicas to offload work
No special hardware necessary
Can span data centers

Weaknesses
Complex

Topic: Failover Clustering

Topic: Failover Clustering

The Basics
Implementing Failover Clustering
Failing Over with Failover Clustering
Failover Clustering Strengths and Weaknesses

The Basics
Provides protection in the event of a catastrophic hardware
(server) failure
Requires the Windows Server Failover Cluster service
Only supports cluster-aware services or applications such as
Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Exchange Server
Requires shared disk storage (Fibre Channel or iSCSI)
Clients connect to a virtual name hosted by one of the nodes
in the cluster
Provides instance-level availability with automatic and
manual failover

Implementing Failover Clustering

Multiple server nodes
Specialized storage
requirements
Nodes can now span
subnets
Requires the Windows
Clustering Feature
Requires SQL Server
installed on the
cluster

Failing Over with Failover Clustering

Determined by failover policy; usually set to automatic
The resource group owner (server node) is determined by
quorum

Node majority
Node and file share majority
Node and disk majority
Disk only

Failover time period may be lengthy

Failover node restarts the instance and recover of all
databases occurs
Zero reconfiguration of applications and clients

Failover Clustering Strengths and

Weaknesses

Strengths

Stable and mature

Protects an entire instance and system databases
Easier than ever to setup with the Windows Cluster Validation Tool

Weaknesses

Specialty hardware requirements

More expensive
Requires more expertise
Does NOT duplicate database data; failover clustering should be
combined with another HA technology that duplicates database data

2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Office, Azure, System Center, Dynamics and other product names are or may be registered
trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries. The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of
Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a
commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT
MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.