Hello
I'm installing a server infrastructure to host websites. High availability is a requirement. Load balancer, IIS shared config, no problem. But I would be grateful if you could give me some hints on which SQL availability method to use.
Given are:
- 2 Servers, NO shared storage
- Windows 2012
- SQL Server 2012 (any edition, the smaller the better)
Goal is that if server A fails, websites on server B switch to SQL Server on server B. If both servers are running, websites on both servers can connect to SQL Server A. Active/Active for SQL is not required as the load will not be high. The websites are not updated very often and are no online shops, so it would be good enough if SQL B would get the data from SQL A every 15 minutes or so.
I've read descriptions for the various methods, but don't know what to use:
AlwaysOn Failover Cluster:
+ Standard Edition would suffice
- needs shared storage
AlwaysOn Availability Group:
+ would provide automatic failover
- needs Enterprise Edition
Database Mirroring:
- no automatic failover
Log Shipping:
+ relatively simple setup
- no automatic failover
Replication:
- no automatic failover
Which solution would you recommend? Availability Groups? Or should I point the web applications to an alias which will be changed by script of a server fails? I would like to get around "quick&dirty" solutions.
Thank you very much!