SQL Server High Availability Training

SQL Server High Availability Course Outline

• High-Availability Fundamentals

  Characterising high availability

  • The "five nines"
  • Site
  • Instance
  • Database
  • Defining a service level agreement

  Planned vs. unplanned downtime

  • Performing routine maintenance
  • Recovering from disasters
  • Handling hardware failures

• Installing Windows 2008/2012 Failover Clustering

  Defining components of a cluster

  • Single-instance architecture
  • Multi-instance architecture
  • Shared storage
  • Resource group
  • Heartbeat
  • Quorum

  Preparing for Windows failover clustering

  • Configuring an iSCSI target
  • Managing shared storage
  • Installing the failover clustering feature

• Establishing SQL Server Failover Clustering

  Planning for SQL Server failover clustering

  • Determining the correct version of Windows Server
  • Upgrading to SQL Server 2012
  • Leveraging virtual machines for clustering

  Creating a SQL Server failover cluster

  • Installing a new failover cluster
  • Adding a new node
  • Failing over to a passive node

• Employing Log Shipping

  Preparing for a warm standby server

  • Synchronising logins
  • Creating network shares

  Implementing transaction log shipping

  • Specifying log backup frequency
  • Configuring the log shipping monitor

  Switching to the standby server

  • Redirecting applications
  • Bringing the standby online

• Configuring Database Mirroring

  Comparing mirroring architectures

  • High availability
  • High protection
  • High performance
  • Full safety vs. safety off

  Getting ready for mirroring

  • Setting the recovery model
  • Selecting the principal, mirror and witness servers

  Mirroring a database

  • Configuring the principal, mirror and witness servers
  • Initiating the mirroring session

  Administering mirroring

  • Enabling and disabling mirroring with scripts
  • Launching the Database Mirroring Monitor (DMM)

  Employing a mirror for reporting

  • Taking a database snapshot
  • Querying a snapshot of the mirror

• AlwaysOn Availability Groups

  Enhancing the capabilities of database mirroring

  • Database mirroring with multiple databases and multiple mirrors
  • Manually failing over a group of databases

  Clustering and deployment

  • Multi-site clustering across subnets
  • Automating deployment using AlwaysOn PowerShell cmdlets
  • Monitoring the high-availability configuration using the AlwaysOn dashboard

• Combining High-Availability Technologies

  Selecting the appropriate strategies

  • Determining the pros and cons of each HA technology
  • Failover clustering with a mirror

  Pulling it all together

  • Creating a complete high-availability solution
  • Evaluating the results