SQL and Exchange replication

[premsub]

Could anyone confirm if OPEN-E replication supports SQL. I am concerned that I/O on SQL memory buffers may not be flushed to disk, causing inconsistent recovery on the DR site?

Any implemented this and tested recovery with an abrupt shutdown of the primary server?

[pfeifferl]

Hello,

I have no experience with this, but I'm very skeptical, because there are still isssues with failover and Hyper-V VMs (blue screen). There is a long interruption of iSCSI connection while failing over /back (4-10 pings) ... too long for seamless functionality. We are all still waiting for a fix ...

[asingh]

Looking for a reply on this. Does the snapshot and replication get flushed to disk before?

[techfreakz]

Hi there,

I believe if a database exists on a filesystem that is being snapshot'd, then that database must be VSC-aware and flush its data to disks on demand when signalled to do so before a snapshot can complete. This happens typically inside the MS OS eco-system.

Since the DSS snapshot process is not in anyway coupled in to the MS VSC subsystem running on your database server, I would suspect the answer is no to your question.

A work around may be use a VSS aware backup utility like BackupAssist to intiate a VSC snapshot, whereupon the database will flush its buffers to disk, snapshot, then backup to another share or volume on the DSS server, then have that volume replicated to another location.

I guess it'd be useful to have a windows service agent that communicates with the DSS server and signals your VSC-aware application when a snapshot is imminent....

Best regards

AS

[asingh]

I hear what your saying with the "flush its data to disks on demand when signalled to do so before a snapshot can complete. This happens typically inside the MS OS eco-system."

However we also have Equallogic systems and they handle the SQL snapsot as needed so there are no problems. With no agent on Microsoft system.


Thanks
Aneil

[asingh]

I hear what your saying with the "flush its data to disks on demand when signalled to do so before a snapshot can complete. This happens typically inside the MS OS eco-system."

However we also have Equallogic systems and they handle the SQL snapshot as needed with no problems. No agent on Microsoft system is needed with the Equallogics, the equallogics handle this all be them selves.


SO the question still is will our Open-e systems handle MS SQL snapshots properly?



Thanks
Aneil