March 18, 2011 at 5:15 am
We are looking at hosting 3 globally distributed SQL Server installations at different data centers. The intent is that Site A will serve web traffic and data for a specific region, same with Site B and C. In the case that Site A data center goes down, looses connectivity, etc. the users of Site A users will fail over to Site B or C (depending which is up). Also, if a user from Site A travels to Site C they should be able to access their data as it was on Site A.
My questions is what SQL replication technology (SQL Replication or 3rd party) can support this scenario? We are using SQL 2008 R2 Enterprise at each site, each site runs on top of VMWare with a Netapp filer. Would something like distributed caching help in this scenario as well?
We have looked at and tested Peer-to-Peer replication but have encountered issues with conflicts during our testing. I imagine there are other global data centers that have encountered and solved this issue.
The client doesn't want a "master" DB scenario. They are wanting the ability to have user in Site A use Site A's database, users in Site B use Site B's database, etc. In the case Site A, B, and C users need to see data entered by each other. If Site A user travels to Site C they need to see data they entered in Site A. If Site A fails it should fail-over to another site (B or C). Sort of like a mesh, peer to peer replication scenario... not sure if it's even possible.
March 18, 2011 at 6:46 am
If you have all the data in each site, then that handles both your failover and your "person A in location C" issue.
The only thing I can think of that would fit that whole bill would be merge replication. It's pretty much designed for keeping multiple database servers synchronized with each other.
There are probably other options, but I haven't had to deal with that kind of situation, so merge is the only one coming to my mind right now.
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March 21, 2011 at 1:58 pm
Merge replication wont solve your conflict issue for you but it will offer you a method of resolving them.
I'm interested in your peer to peer replication setup, as when this is setup correctly this would fit you requirements. Done properly with minimal latency you wont encounter replication conflicts. 2008 has now got peer to peer conflict detection.
Do you have any more information on your previous p2p set up?
My other thoughts would include replication at the SAN level. This "may" work depending on your vendor and the options they provide.
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