June 14, 2006 at 6:26 pm
Hi All,
According to Microsoft, if you have a failover/passive server, you will not need a licence unless you are "snapshot reporting" on it.
My question is,
1) What is this reporting? Why would you need to do this type of reporting? Can't you do it from the Active server?
2) Should I consider having license for the Passive server or not?
3) Also, is Replication better and easier to handle than Log shipping for a passive server and when we need to reverse the roles?
Your help is highly apreciated.
Thanks,
TK
June 14, 2006 at 9:39 pm
1. Snapshot reporting refers to read-only access of database snapshots created on a mirror server (SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition). Mirrors and snapshots are new to SQL 2k5. The scenario mentioned is used as a way to off-load read-only data access (such as for recource-hungry reports) that slow production use of the active server down. This being a SQL Server 2000 forum, I'll stop at that.
2. You should consider licensing the passive servers only if you intend to use the resource for additional things. For example, a log-shipping standby server could also host databases used by other applications, it could be a Reporting Services server, etc., etc. Any of those scenarios would require full licensing. If your active server is hosting multiple databases and is under heavy load, you could spread some of the databases to the passive server, and set them up in and active/active configuration, where they each could fail over to the other.
If you have the luxury of implementing an identical failover server, and your active server is mission critical, then keep the passive server passive and only worry about licensing if you fail over to the passive server and stay that way for 30 days or more.
3. Log shipping is significantly easier to manage and fail over to in the event of active server failure, IMHO. Also, a replication target is not a passive partner for these purposes - it would need full licensing even if all it did was sit and catch replication transactions for years on end.
-Eddie
Eddie Wuerch
MCM: SQL
June 14, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Hey Eddie, Thanks. It was very helpful.
We have SAN being implemented in our infrastructure. So, Snap Mirroring, if not through SQL 2000, is possible through SAN.
What do you recommend for a scenario where the Datawarehouse data is processed on a server A (2GB, dual processor), and then at 9:00 am or so, is restored to Server B (4 GB, Quad Processor) where the web users just query reports etc. Server A has some other proceduction databases as well, where users can write to it, but, no one writes to the Server B. Both these servers have backup servers with same configuration as their active server.
How do you recommend should we set up the servers. The data on Server B is very critical financial data. Web Users are not allowed to make changes to the system directly. They can only put a request forward for whatever they want, and then the internal staff makes these changes.
So, what are the best possible ways to keep the business going in case of a DRP. What strategy do you recomend?
Thanks heaps in advance.
Regards,
Tk
June 15, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Hi Everyone,
Any thoughts on the above?
Cheers,
TK
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