Win 2012 /SQL 2014
We're in the process of bringing up a 2nd colo location for disaster recovery purposes. We want to have our SQL Server dbs somehow shipped to the 2nd location as well. I've used replication quite a bit in the past and it's a pain in the butt and far from what I'd call reliable, especially over a long wire. Ok so maybe replication is very easy to setup but it's far from what I'd call robust, and we frequently need to re-initialize publications because counts don't match. Sometimes Replication Monitor reports an error but most often it doesn't. We need a robust solution. Our main database is 3 TB too, so re-initializing over the wire isn't an option.
I've just started reading about AG's and this seems like the solution we want but it also seems like a lot of work to setup and then work to monitor that it's working properly and troubleshoot issues when they happen. I watched Brent Ozar's 30 min video on real life lessons and he even mentioned that AG's are a lot of work. I put some stock in it if Brent is saying it.
So my question is which is the best solution for Disaster Recovery? Is Log Shipping still used these days or is that old school? What about using LiteSpeed to apply the tranlog backups at the 2nd colo? In an ideal world I would like something that is fairly easy to implement, doesn't require a lot of babysitting (so I can do my other development work) and is reliable. Is that AG?
I've read multiple articles about AG, including the articles in BOL and several others on the Web, so unless you have an amazingly super fantastic article I don't need links. What I'm really after are real-world scenarios like mine, and what you have implemented for DR and how is it working.
Thanks in advance.
André