SQL Server Architecture – High Availability and Disaster Recovery

The Problem

You require a data platform to host a new application that will be critical to your business. You know that any downtime to this database and the app it supports will cause problems for your business. It is essential that downtime is minimised and also if the worst should happen, you can recover your databases on another site, in quick time with a minimum of data loss.

Our Solution

Our SQL Server consultants have a wealth of experience developing solutions to meet uptime, recovery point and recovery time objectives. Our high availability  process uses our simple ABC approach:

A.    Analyse and Design

We will work with you and your team to identify recovery time and recovery point objectives. We will determine how much downtime is acceptable to you during the year. We measure uptime as a percentage, for example, 99.9% uptime per year requirement means you can have no more than about eight and three-quarter hours downtime throughout the year. We will also identify your recovery point objective, which measures how much data your company is prepared to lose in the event of a disaster and determine the recovery time objective which measures how quickly you need to restore the service should the worst happen.

From this position, we will be able to design a data platform solution, either on-premises or in the cloud, that will meet your uptime, recovery point and recovery time objectives. Using features in the Microsoft data platform such as  Availability Groups, or Failover Cluster Instances to help achieve this. The output of this phase will be a target architecture design for the new data platform.

B.    Build and Execute

With the plan in place, our  SQL consultants can help you build and configure the solutions to meet your needs, and this will include but not be limited to

• SQL Server Install and build
• High Availability Configuration
• Enable disaster recovery features
• Thoroughly test the elements to make sure they are fit for purpose
• Migrate your databases to the new configuration

C.    Control and Manage

The high availability and disaster recovery features provide excellent benefits that can help you deliver on stringent SLAs. For the high availability solution to work when needed, it needs to be managed and appropriately maintained.   If your organisation has a full-time DBA, this will likely fall to them. In which case we are happy to hand over all the work we have done. If you have DBA in another data platform technology or staff member who will be responsible for the data platform afterwards, we can help with any training needs they may have.  If you don’t have a full-time DBA or dedicated resource to help manage the data platform high availability and disaster recovery features, then you can engage and utilise our data platform managed service offering, and we handle your whole data platform for you which will include undertaking periodic performance reviews, patching, ensuring back-ups have been successful, ensuring that security is in place and conducting regular maintenance. Alternatively, you can engage with us with using a “pay as you go” support service, whereby you call off support time, as and when you need help.