Log Shipping Vs. AlwaysOn - Are Standard Edition SQL 2012 Users Limited?

Log Shipping Vs. AlwaysOn - Are Standard Edition SQL 2012 Users Limited?
By Chandra Heitzman

The value differential among Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition and project Edition (Enterprise outlay roughly four period more) makes set great store by becomes a important consideration. Enterprise's foremost advertising aim is AlwaysOn, a refined form of record mirroring designed to provide remote misfortune recovery on a record level. Standard Edition, however, relies on log shipping in its place of record mirroring, and the largely industry experts consider the latter to be preferable in largely bags, cost notwithstanding.

AlwaysOn does, in detail, offer several advantages more log shipping. These include automatic and rapid fail-over protection, automatic client redirection, easier configuration, full-text log support, built-in group encryption support, and a reduced amount of bandwidth use up with asynchronous proliferation. Wearing addition, AlwaysOn improves on record mirroring by permitting the user to merge multiple databases into individual troop to facilitate can be abortive more at the same time. It furthermore permits up to four replicas in support of a record, while traditional record mirroring single allows individual. Finally, while mirrored databases are forever in a state of recovery to facilitate prevents the use up of to facilitate record while actively mirroring, AlwaysOn can grant read-only access to believed record in support of purposes of exposure and backup.

Even with all of these advantages, three notable cons exist. First, all record mirroring provides both synchronous and asynchronous process modes; AlwaysOn is rejection exception. Synchronous roughly translates to high-safety mode, while asynchronous emphasizes performance. Organizations requiring profound use up of asynchronous process will need to possess fast proliferation interval generation and bandwidth tempo or accept the opportunity of data loss. Second, as mentioned higher than, AlwaysOn necessitates the licensing of SQL Server project Edition on quadruple the cost of the Standard Edition. Third, AlwaysOn requires Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) which is single supported in Windows Server 2008 project Edition or anon editions.

With the feasible monetary and infrastructure cost of licensing project Edition, nearly organizations may possibly consider Standard Edition a viable alternative, provided they understand the limitations and advantages of log shipping. What a revenue in support of misfortune recovery, it requires more maintenance than AlwaysOn. Log shipping load physical fail-over and the process can take longer than 30 minutes to complete. Likewise, client redirection and role trade require physical input. Weaknesses aside, log shipping provides authentic backup store as part of the process and chains multiple secondary databases.

Given the chance involved in the superfluous expense, businesses may possibly accept uncertainty after deciding which version to license. Organizations must consider implementing the full-featured 180-day trial from the Microsoft tangle locate already accomplishment a final decision. Generally speaking, record mirroring is preferable to log shipping, and AlwaysOn's attempt to pick up on it cannot responsibly be without being seen.

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