SQL Server Case Study

SQL Server Cluster configuration of mission critical application for major high street retailer.

This SQL Server project relates to a major high street retailer that has commissioned a new time tracking system for use at all its stores and other locations. The system tracks the hours worked by all employees and provides the source data for the payroll system.

The system is deemed to be a mission critical part of the company's IT infrastructure and cannot be offline. The system stores all its data in SQL Server databases at the companies head office data centre.

Ballard Chalmers were appointed by the clients IT Infrastructure partner to install and configure a SQL Server cluster to meet the requirements of the new time tracking system. The system is based on SQL Server 2005 and an Active-Passive cluster.

The client installed the operating systems for both servers and configured the iSCSI connectivity for the SAN used to store the databases. Ballard Chalmers setup the Microsoft Cluster Services, installed and configured SQL Server for use in the cluster. The server was configured according to best practices and to the requirements of the time tracking software vendor.

Disaster recovery scenarios were considered and backup and recovery plans were put in place using:

• SQL Server Full, Differential and Log backups were setup using the standard ArcServe system used by the client (which stores backups off site).
• Snapshots replicated from the SAN to a second SAN at a different location.

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