Database Mirroring or Log Shipping for SharePoint
Michael Watson posted a short blog on Database mirroring and log shipping. Which is better? but this fails to highlight that SharePoint does not support the “;Failover Partner=PartnerServerName” and therefore does not offer the benefit of automatic failover.
The white paper Using database mirroring with Windows SharePoint Services details the steps required to notify SharePoint of the change in server but this involves lots of horrible stsadm commands, deleting and adding content databases and restarting servers. Not really what I would regard as suitable as you’re using mirroring to provide high availability right?
One simple solution to this, and again it’s not automatic but I am sure some of you scripting guru’s could add this to a MoM alert, is to use a DNS name called something like SharePoint_SQL, then when the servers fail over just update the IP address for this to the mirrored server and your done.
[Update] Blogs do keep you honest, and I didn’t mean to be negative… Michael has posted a fantastic response and yes it is true that I don’t know many SharePoint admin’s that have rights to DNS. I look forward to Michael’s planned comparison between SQL Aliasing, Load balancing, host files and WINS/DNS. He also points me to the stsadm -o renameserver command which is relevant to people using WSS V3/MOSS.
