Audience
This course is intended for professional database administrators and developers who have on-the-job experience administering SQL Server databases in an enterprise environment and need to maximize the availability of their servers.
Prerequisites
An understanding of the business needs for high availability of databases is useful to get the most out of this course. An intermediate knowledge of SQL Server would be an advantage to delegates.
Duration
3 days. Hands on.
Course Objectives
This course provides delegates with the skills and knowledge to design and implement high availability database solutions using Microsoft SQL Server 2008, R2 and 2012. The course helps the delegates to meet the availability needs of their organization and keep their servers running all the time, regardless of hardware, software or any other failures. It covers how to analyse the business requirements for high availability, design highly available data storage, design and implement a highly available solution using failover clustering, database mirroring, log shipping, replication, and their mutual combinations. It takes into account a broader scope of implementation – various regulatory requirements, networks, operating and information systems, and other components affecting the success of really reliable high availability solutions. It also covers the new AlwaysOn features in SQL Server 2012, as well as process of documenting and testing the chosen strategy.
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Describe the options for high availability in their SQL Server version
- Design and implement failover clustering
- Design and implement database mirroring
- Design and implement log shipping
- Use replication for high availability purposes
- Design and use proper high availability storage solution
- Maximize availability by combining high availability technologies
- Document, test and validate the high availability solutions
- Use the new SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn availability features
Course Content
Selecting the Appropriate High-availability Solution
Identifying and Analysing High-availability Requirements and Constraints
Determining Appropriate High-availability Solutions
Failover Clustering
Overview of Clustering and Cluster Topologies
Implementing a Failover Cluster
Verifying a SQL Server Cluster Configuration
Monitoring a SQL Server Cluster
Upgrading and Patching of Failover Clustering Nodes
Upgrading to Failover Clustering from Other High Availability Solutions
Highly Available Database Storage
Overview of Highly Available Database Storage Solutions
Determining Storage Requirements for Databases and SQL Server Components
Designing Storage Solutions for SQL Server Databases
Implementing a SAN Storage
Designing a Restore Strategy
Implementing Backups and Validating Restore Strategy
Database Mirroring
Overview of Database Mirroring
Determining Database Mirroring Requirements and Constraints
Designing Mirroring Roles and Topology for Database Mirroring
Upgrading and Patching of Database Mirroring
Moving to Database Mirroring from Other High Availability Solutions
Log Shipping
Overview of Log Shipping
Determining Log Shipping Requirements and Constraints
Designing Log Shipping Server Roles and Topology
Implementing Log Shipping
Testing and Validating Log Shipping
Upgrading and Patching of Log Shipping
Moving to Log Shipping from Other High Availability Solutions
Using Replication for High Availability
Overview of Replication in SQL Server
Using Replication for High Availability Purposes
Designing Highly Available Replication Topology
Implementing Replication for High Availability
Testing and Validating Replication
Upgrading and Patching of Replication
Using Different Versions of SQL Server for Replication
Combining High-availability Technologies
Evaluating Weaknesses in Each High-availability Technology
Maximizing Availability by Combining High-availability Technologies
New Features in SQL Server 2012
Availability Groups
Coordinated Failover
Using Multiple Replicas for Database Mirroring
Geo-clustering
Fast application Failover Using AG Listeners
Other High Availability Improvements
Documenting and Testing a High-availability Strategy
Documenting High-availability Solutions
Designing an Operations Plan
Creating a Test Plan for High-availability Solutions