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InfoScale™ 9.0 Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions HA and DR Solutions Guide for Microsoft SQL Server - Windows

Last Published: 2025-04-13

Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (9.0)

Platform: Windows

Tasks for configuring disaster recovery for SQL Server

After setting up an SFW HA high availability environment for SQL Server on a primary site, you can create a secondary or "failover" site for disaster recovery.

The Disaster Recovery (DR) wizard helps you to clone the storage and service group configuration from the primary site to the secondary site. You can install the application on the secondary site during the DR wizard workflow.

The DR wizard also helps you set up replication and the global clustering option (GCO). You can choose to configure replication using Volume Replicator (Volume Replicator) or an agent-supported array-based hardware replication. The DR wizard can configure required options for the VCS agents for EMC SRDF and for Hitachi TrueCopy. To use the wizard with any other agent-supported array-based replication, you must complete configuring global clustering with the wizard before configuring replication on the array.

The DR wizard is available from the Solutions Configuration Center. Arctera recommends using the Solutions Configuration Center as a guide for installing and configuring disaster recovery.

Note:

If you are using non-shared storage (dynamic disk groups monitored using VMNSDg agent), you cannot use the DR wizard to configure disaster recovery. You have to set up DR manually. Refer to the separate workflow table (See Table 10-2) available for configuring DR manually.

The following table shows the steps specific to the DR configuration that are done after configuring high availability on the primary zone.

Table: Configuring the secondary site for disaster recovery

Action	Description
Install the product and configure the cluster on the secondary site	Warning: Ensure that the name you assign to the secondary site cluster is different from the name assigned to the primary site cluster. See Guidelines for installing Arctera InfoScale Enterprise and configuring the cluster on the secondary site.
Verify that SQL Server has been configured for high availability at the primary site	Verify that SQL Server has been configured for high availability at the primary site and that the service groups are online See Verifying your primary site configuration.
Set up the replication prerequisites	Ensure that replication prerequisites for your selected method of replication are met before running the DR wizard See Setting up security for Volume Replicator. See Requirements for EMC SRDF array-based hardware replication. See Requirements for Hitachi TrueCopy array-based hardware replication.
(Secure cluster only) Assign user privileges	For a secure cluster only, assign user privileges See Assigning user privileges (secure clusters only).
Start running the DR wizard	Review prerequisites for the DR wizard Start the DR wizard and make the initial selections required for each task: selecting a primary site system, the service group, the secondary site system, and the replication method See Configuring disaster recovery with the DR wizard.
Clone the storage configuration (Volume Replicator replication only)	(Volume Replicator replication option) Clone the storage configuration on the secondary site using the DR wizard See Cloning the storage on the secondary site using the DR wizard (Volume Replicator replication option).
Create temporary storage for application installation (other replication methods)	(EMC SRDF, Hitachi TrueCopy, or GCO only replication option) Use the DR wizard to create temporary storage for application installation on the secondary site See Creating temporary storage on the secondary site using the DR wizard (array-based replication).
Install and configure SQL Server on the first cluster node	Ensure that the disk group and volumes for the system database are mounted on the first node Follow the guidelines for installing SQL Server in the SFW HA environment See About installing SQL Server on the first system.
Install and configure SQL Server on the failover node(s)	Stop SQL Server services on the first node Follow the guidelines for installing SQL Server on failover nodes in the SFW HA environment See About installing SQL Server on additional systems.
Clone the service group configuration	Clone the service group configuration from the primary to the secondary site using the DR wizard See Cloning the service group configuration from the primary site to the secondary site.
Configure replication and global clustering, or configure global clustering only	(Volume Replicator replication) Use the wizard to configure replication and global clustering (EMC SRDF replication) Set up replication and then use the wizard to configure the SRDF resource and global clustering (Hitachi TrueCopy) Set up replication and then use the wizard to configure the HTC resource and global clustering (Other array-based replication) Use the wizard to configure global clustering, and then set up replication See Configuring replication and global clustering.
Verify the disaster recover configuration	Verify that the secondary site has been fully configured for disaster recovery See Verifying the disaster recovery configuration.
(Optional) Add additional DR sites	Optionally, add additional DR sites to a Volume Replicator environment See Adding multiple DR sites (optional).
Handling service group dependencies after failover	If your environment includes dependent service groups, review the considerations for bringing the service groups online after failover to the secondary site See Recovery procedures for service group dependencies.