asked
Reset up mirroring after fail over to mirrorred database
hi guys, Right now our production sql server database server is set up with SQL cluster for minimal down time (when doing security patches etc) and replication to a standby server for disaster recovery. I don't know how my boss gets the idea that the sql server 2008 mirroring can replace sql cluster. To him, we should use database mirror instead of cluster and the mirror set up can fail over to each other just like cluster does. I tried to explain to him that Mirror is more like replication and can't fail over to each other easily like cluster does. When the mirrored database's brought online, we have to reset up the mirror process. Plus mirroring is on the database level, not server level. Do you guys know any way how the database mirror can be working like Sql cluster? All the documents I try to find say nothing about how to reset up mirroring after the mirrorred database is brought online. Do you know any documents about that? Thanks!
To fail a primary over to the secondary for mirroring is as simple as a mouse click, you just chose to fail it over. When it fails guess what, it is now syncing the other direction. No involvement from you. Your secondary becomes the primary and the old primary becomes the secondary. If you have a witness failover can be automatic in the event of a failure. Otherwise you can set it up without a witness and have to manually fail over if you need to. You might be thinking of the old school log shipping where if you fail over log shipping you have to configure log shipping all over again to go the other direction. Microsoft eliminated that headache with mirroring. Mirroring is great, but it doesn't give you all the protection of clustering. Depending on what your HA/DR needs are each has its advantages. There are pro's and con's to each solution, mirroring, log shipping, clustering, virtual, etc.
If you need any help let me know, I have set it up many times. There is also a great book by Robert Davis and Ken Simmons called Pro SQL Server 2008 Mirroring that you can find on [Amazon](
http://www.amazon.com/Server-2008-Mirroring-Experts-Voice/dp/1430224231/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300909323&sr=8-1). It is a quick and good read as well as a great resource book.
