Clustering Vs Mirroring | SQL Server Performance Forums

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Clustering Vs Mirroring

Hi All, I want to get people’s opinions on the two really. I’m relatively new to SQL Server, but doing OK so far. Now we need to expand the SQL Servers to include some support in the event of a failover, but have been reading that Microsoft do the clustering technology, which as I understand it will have x servers, where they replicate between themselves and cover failover support, but share the workload, Where as some of the Mirroring software I have seen, like Double-Take, will replicate and failover in the event something does happen, So what I#%92m really asking is which do you use and which is the better? My scenario is that I will have three sites, each with two SQL Servers, lets say A and B, where A will capture the main application data, which will be replicated to other databases on A OR to Server B depending on suggestions. Ideally I want all A servers to replicate with themselves so they are all up to date and all B servers with the local A, if that makes sense? They will all be in different countries. Sorry for the long post [:I]
Microsoft SQL clustering is a failover cluster and not a load balancing cluster like web servers for example. The nodes to not replicate data between eachother. If you have two nodes the sql service will only be running on one node at a time. The nodes use a shared disk storage and only one server at a time can own and access the disks. You can implement replication (snapshot, transactional or merge) between databases but that works the same on a cluster as on a single server. Which type of replication you can implement depends on your environment and database design.
Thanks for that.<br /><br />I have a feeling that a Cluster wont suit out needs, where as a Mirror will.<br /><br />Does anyone have any views on Double take or can reccommend a good piece of Mirroring software to look at?<br /><br />[<img src=’/community/emoticons/emotion-2.gif’ alt=’:D‘ />]<br /><br />
Not sure may be search on the google will fetch the related information, also refer to the microsoft/sql site of any details on the third party tools. For the scneario you can take help of replication for the important objects in the database. Satya SKJ
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