Plan for a high-availability cluster

Before you start setting up computers and database servers to use a high-availability cluster, you might want to do some initial planning. The following list contains planning tasks to perform:

• Choose and acquire appropriate hardware.
• If you are using more than one database server to store data that you want to replicate, migrate and redistribute data, so that it can be managed by a single database server.
• Ensure that all databases you want to replicate use transaction logging. To turn on transaction logging, see Manage the database-logging mode.
• Develop client applications to make use of both database servers in the replication pair. For an explanation of design considerations, see Redirection and connectivity for data-replication clients and Design data replication group clients.
• Create a schedule for starting HDR for the first time.
• Design a storage-space and logical-log backup schedule for the primary database server.
• Produce a plan for how to handle failures of either database server and how to restart HDR after a failure. Read Redirection and connectivity for data-replication clients.