1. www.plex.com SQL Server Disaster Recovery Detroit Area SQL Server User’s Group Drew Flint Plexus Systems Inc. 7/10/08

2. www.plex.com Biography Married to wife Missy for 12 years

3. www.plex.com Biography Eldest Son – Benjamin 6 Years Old

4. www.plex.com Biography Son – Ryan 4 Years Old

5. www.plex.com Biography Daughter – Emma 20 Months Old

6. www.plex.com Agenda What is a disaster? Disaster Recovery Terminology (light version) Software Disaster Recovery Options Hardware Disaster Recovery Options SQL Server DR things to know DR Plan Suggestions

7. www.plex.com Disaster

8. www.plex.com Disaster

9. www.plex.com Disaster

10. www.plex.com Disaster Webster’s definition: A calamitous event, esp. one occurring suddenly and causing great loss of life, damage, or hardship, as a flood, airplane crash, or business failure.

11. www.plex.com Disaster Drew’s definition: Any event that causes your system to not operate for a prolonged period of time.

12. www.plex.com Disaster Recovery Terminology Recovery Time Objective – RTO –The amount of time system recovery must occur. This is usually measured in hours. Recovery Point Objective – RPO –The maximum amount of acceptable data loss. This is usually measured in hours. –http://www.drj.com/glossary/drjglossary.html

13. www.plex.com Software Disaster Recovery Options General Truths about Software Solutions –They cost less money than hardware based solutions. –They often require your system to do more work. Due to their consumption of resources your database server would normally use for day to day processing: RAM CPU Disk

14. www.plex.com Software Disaster Recovery Options SQL Server Replication SQL Server Database Mirroring Third Party Solutions –Replicator X (NetApp) – Example given –GoldenGate Software - http://www.goldengate.com/http://www.goldengate.com/ –WAN Sync - CA XOSoft - http://www.xosoft.com/http://www.xosoft.com/ –Double-Take Software - http://www.xosoft.com/http://www.xosoft.com/ –Steeleye for SQL - http://www.steeleye.com/products/sqlserver.php http://www.steeleye.com/products/sqlserver.php

15. www.plex.com SQL Server – Trans. Replication SQL Server Database Table PublisherSubscriber Table SQL Server Distribution Database

16. www.plex.com Pros of SQL Server Replication Very rapid transport of end user data. It can synchronize most of the common schema changes. It’s included in the price of SQL Server assuming Work Group edition or higher. There is a limit on the number of publications on Work Group Edition (25).

17. www.plex.com Cons to SQL Server Replication Transaction log files will experience growth. How much depends on: –Frequency of replication –Transaction log backups Optimal configuration will require the introduction of an additional database server to function as the remote distributor. It increases the complexity of making schema changes to articles included in publications.

18. www.plex.com SQL Server Database Mirroring Partner DB Server Witness DB Server PrincipalMirror

19. www.plex.com Pros of Database Mirroring It’s included in SQL Server editions standard or higher. The witness server can be a lesser version of SQL Server, down to Express Edition. Has many different levels of protection: – Full (completely automatic failover) – High Protection (manual failover) – High performance (forced only).

20. www.plex.com Cons of Database Mirroring Scenarios where the mirror causes the failover unnecessarily. Transaction logs have the potential of growing. Sometimes significantly should the “mirror” partner server become unavailable for an extended period of time. No way to define database consistency groups. It assumes your databases are independent.

21. www.plex.com Replicator X This is a NetApp solution that can replicate data from any disk that is attached to the database server.

22. www.plex.com How Replicator X Works VRR (RAM) Bitmap of source volume RXRC Replication Client Source Drive Data RXRS Replication Server RXRC Replication Client SAN Data VRR (RAM) Bitmap of source volume

23. www.plex.com Pros of Replicator X Extremely flexible. It can address pretty much any storage data migration scenario. Small footprint on server. Low CPU/RAM consumption. It supports scripting to trigger events.

24. www.plex.com Cons of Replicator X Very costly solution. High level of expertise to properly configure environment. Lots of moving parts to configure correctly for optimal configuration. Pay per TB replicated.

25. www.plex.com Hardware Disaster Recovery Options Recovery Point (EMC) & Unisys 30M NetApp Snapmirror (SAN Based) EMC MirrorView (SAN Based)

26. www.plex.com Recovery Point/UNISYS 30M In order to replicate data, both solutions use the combination of a splitter device driver and their appliance attached to the SAN Fabric and TCP/IP network.

27. www.plex.com Recovery Point/UNISYS 30M Server RP Appliance WAN FC Switch SAN All Data Duplicate of Write Data Duplicate of Write Data Data Lun Journal Lun Data Lun Journal Lun

28. www.plex.com Pros of Recovery Point/UNISYS 30M Low overhead on database server. Database server will see no more than 3% CPU overhead. Capable of many points to recover to. Supports Bi-Directional Replication. Flow of data is controlled through management interface.

29. www.plex.com Pros of Recovery Point/UNISYS 30M Easy to use management interface. Only replicates changed blocks since previous replication. Provides integrated FC/IP bridge. Provides integrated WAN optimization.

30. www.plex.com Cons of Recovery Point/UNISYS 30M High price point. Have to acquire additional disk on both SANs to implement solution. This will accommodate the journals used for replication. Pay per TB being replicated. Every time you add storage that you want replicated you have to pay for this as well.

31. www.plex.com Cons of Recovery Point/UNISYS 30M Billed on the size of the LUN, not the actual usage. Need to buy additional appliances to get local CDP and distance CDP. One replication appliance can replicate to one destination.

32. www.plex.com SAN Based Replication Solutions SAN based replication solution. With this solution the SAN incurs the overhead of determining the changed blocks and sending them over to it’s mirrored pair.

33. www.plex.com NetApp SnapMirror Server FC Switch All Data Server FC Switch SAN All Data SAN All Data WAN Router IP Switch

34. www.plex.com Pros of NetApp SnapMirror Minor overhead on server when snapshot is taken to start synchronization. This is done with their standard SnapDrive utility. Only sends the last change to a given block when a snapshot/replication event is triggered. Many alternatives for replication medium with FC or IP based replication paths. Can aggregate links to replicate more data in same amount of time.

35. www.plex.com Cons of NetApp SnapMirror High price point. Noticable jump in CPU Utilization for CPU that has the SnapMirror daemon running on it. The more data change between replication intervals the more intense the CPU spike. High level of planning to implement solution.

36. www.plex.com EMC MirrorView /A Server FC Switch All Data Server FC Switch SAN All Data SAN All Data WAN Router IP Switch FC-IP Bridge Primary ImageSecondary Image

37. www.plex.com Pro’s EMC MirrorView /A No overhead to source server for synchronization process. Only sends the last changed blocks. Flexible scheduling of when synchronizations happen. The amount of bandwidth the transfers between SAN consumes is configurable.

38. www.plex.com Cons EMC MirrorView /A Requires you to have a LUN in the Reserved LUN Pool for each mirrored pair (primary and secondary images). Each LUN in the Reserved LUN Pool must be large enough to handle any LUN participating in a SnapView or MirrorView relationship.

39. www.plex.com Cons EMC MirrorView /A You have to purchase a different product for Synchronous replication. If you configure the synchronization to run at the highest rate it might affect throughput on the source LUN. Some models you have to purchase an external FC to IP bridge for WAN based replication solutions.

40. www.plex.com SQL Server DR Things To Know Take regular backups of all databases. Your backup plan should include Full, Differential and Log backups. Frequent log backups help keep the size of the log file down. Verify you have good backups by restoring some of them on a regular interval. Move your backups to multiple locations. Having them stored on the main database server does you no good when that server crashes.

41. www.plex.com SQL Server DR Things To Know You can automate the exporting of all SQL Server Agent Jobs, Operators, and Alerts you have defined. This can be done through the use of SMO. Know how to restore the system databases. –See this BOL article for the necessary steps to restore the master database: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms190679.aspx?s=1 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms190679.aspx?s=1

42. www.plex.com DR Plan Suggestions Include thorough instructions to recover system(s). Ideally this would be written so anyone would be able to understand it. Start simple, then add detail as you go. Something is better than nothing. Include names and phone numbers of co- workers as well as key customer contacts. A call plan works great in this scenario.

43. www.plex.com DR Plan Suggestions Make it a living document. It should be reviewed at least twice a year. IT environments are constantly changing. That means you’re recovery plan does too. Test your plan, test your plan, and then test your plan some more.

44. www.plex.com DR Plan Suggestions Be sure to have your suppliers phone numbers and key personnel in there too. Stage simulated disasters to test your plan in a realistic scenario. Create an inventory of equipment you have so you can easily replace it. Move a copy of the most recent DR plan off site to some place secure.

45. www.plex.com Thanks, have a great night!

46. www.plex.com Contact Information Drew Flint Plexus Systems Inc. www.plex.com afli@plex.com