We have 2-3 Applications; Each .net based application & SQL Database installed/Configured in only one Server.

These are production system.

We have Free Servers but to make cluster need to rebuild the systems and we cannot do it.

What are other ways to make a Backup Server so that in case production Server fails we can move to Backup Server?

The Higher Availability depends of how the application works. You might want to contact the developers and ask them how to achieve your HA.

Discuss with Programmers was First thing i have done.

But they didn't give me convincing reply.

So i have to do something.

Discuss with Programmers was First thing i have done.

But they didn't give me convincing reply.

So i have to do something.

 

If the programmers themselves do not know how to ensure the HA or their own applications then it might be difficult to achieve it in a way that does not create problems.

What you can try is to create a second server when you install the application and then see how to sync the data required for the application from the current production server to the backup one.

In all the cases, you need to study how the application works to be able to achieve the HA.

Thank you for reply.

I prepared one test Sever same as Production by restoring the Production Server Backup with changed IP & Hostname.

Its running fine, But i need to Update it everyday the Changes in Files and SQL Database made in Production Server.

I have no problems if there is One Day Difference as there are no high transactions.

What Script or Procedure can copy the modified files daily to Test Server; as SQL DB has daily backup so how can be restored daily Automatically.

Thank you for reply.

I prepared one test Sever same as Production by restoring the Production Server Backup with changed IP & Hostname.

Its running fine, But i need to Update it everyday the Changes in Files and SQL Database made in Production Server.

I have no problems if there is One Day Difference as there are no high transactions.

What Script or Procedure can copy the modified files daily to Test Server; as SQL DB has daily backup so how can be restored daily Automatically.

For SQL recovery, you can ask them here: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home?forum=sqldisasterrecovery&filter=alltypes&sort=lastpostdesc

To copy files and files you might want to try using robocopy or some Powershell scripts.

all depends on the application, does it have any form of configuration file to tell it where the database lives?

SQL - you could use the SQL AlwaysOn features in 2012 and above, yes it uses elements of FailOverClustering but without the requirement for shared storage so its just an additional role to be installed.

Another option could be HyperV Replica, you could have a temp server, P2V your current one, move to the temp box then install the hyperv role on your existing tin. just ideas though, all depends on those pesky developers!

Thank Jim,

SQL version is 2008 R2 so can't go for AlwaysOn :( 

and There is no SQL Admin here, developers do all things related to SQL and they are not Cooperative

Hyper-V Replica is good option, for this i need to convert physical server to VHDX and then attach this file to VM, am i right?

But how daily changes will be replicated to this virtual Machine?

 Thanks for support

You enable HyperV replica then I believe VSS takes care of the rest, the link below has a good walk through. It is not truly mirrored, I believe the "replica" machine is up to an hour behind http://blogs.technet.com/b/yungchou/archive/2013/01/10/hyper-v-replica-explained.aspx

Just double checked my resources, Looks like HyperV Replica is NOT supported if you are using multiple disks in the current OS.

However SQL Database Mirroring should be available to you...

"Database mirroring is a primarily software solution for increasing database availability. Mirroring is implemented on a per-database basis and works only with databases that use the full recovery model. The simple and bulk-logged recovery models do not support database mirroring. Database mirroring is supported in SQL Server Standard and Enterprise.

Database mirroring offers substantial availability and provides an easy-to-manage alternative or supplement to failover clustering or log shipping. When a database mirroring session is synchronized, database mirroring provides a hot standby server that supports rapid failover with no loss of data from committed transactions. During a typical mirroring session, after a production server fails, client applications can recover quickly by reconnecting to the standby server."

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb934127(v=sql.105).aspx

I am by no means a SQL expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I work closely with a couple of DBAs. My limits are throwing a stored proc together!

Hi Genius1985,

>>Hyper-V Replica is good option, for this i need to convert physical server to VHDX and then attach this file to VM, am i right?

Hyper-v replica came with server 2012 , Please refer to following link regarding frequency:

http://www.biztechmagazine.com/article/2012/12/introducing-hyper-v-replica-windows-server-2012

2012R2:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2013/10/22/what-s-new-in-windows-server-2012-r2.aspx

Hyper-v replica can do that but it is not a HA solution , it is a disaster recovery of VM (it will lost the data which hasn't replicated to DR site) .

So, I still suggest you to build a HA environment for application .

Best Regards,

Elton Ji