This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Allen Kinsel (Blog|Twitter) and covers “disasters and recovery”.  My favorite DR solution is mirroring.  Mirroring is easy to setup and fast, if implemented properly.  It’s a database level solution that allows you to keep a remote copy of your database in sync with your principal database.  Everything is kept in sync, transaction by transaction, in near real time.

Here are some tips and tricks for your mirroring environment:

• If you use mirroring in SQL 2005, I highly suggest you upgrade to 2008.  I have seen several cases where OLTP systems had to use asynchronous mirroring due to load with SQL 2005, but the added log stream compression in 2008 allowed the use of synchronous mode.
• Did you use the GUI to configure your mirroring solution?  Then you really need to look into the T-SQL way.  There are several options the GUI doesn’t show you that you need to know about like dedicating mirror traffic to a specific NIC Card.
• Have you checked to make sure everything on your principal has also been configured on your mirror for when a failover occurs?  You need to make sure things like the database owner, CLR, linked servers, and Logins are all setup and ready to go on the mirror server.
• Are you using a witness for automatic failover?  You should double check that your application has the partner setting in its connection string or it will not be able to find the mirror.

Last month I flew out to Tucson, AZ to film a few training sessions for SSWUG.ORG.  One of my sessions was on mirroring as part of their SQL Disaster Recovery Expo.  The timing for this event and this month’s T-SQL Tuesday topic is perfect.  The expo starts this Friday June 17th, 2011.  If you are planning a DR solution I highly suggest you check out their expo.

The expo is delivered online and split into two tracks.  The premium track is $39 for SSWUG members and $49 for non-members.  That’s really cheap for an entire day of training from industry leading SQL experts.

They also have a “Best of SSWUG” track that is absolutely free and features content from experts like Kevin Kline (Blog|Twitter).

If you’re considering mirroring in your environment and want to learn more tips and tricks like the ones above, then make sure you register for this expo and watch my session.  I will also be online in the chat and available to answer any questions you may have.

In my session you learn how mirroring can fit into an HA/DR solution, and we also discuss the other options that are available.  You can’t choose the right solution if you don’t know what the other options are, because there is no one size fits all.  In the session I also walk you through how to configure mirroring both through the GUI and T-SQL.  You will not want to miss seeing the differences.  We even take a brief look at how to monitor your mirroring configuration after you get it up and rolling.

I hope to see you there!

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