Hello.
We have some internal applications that rely on SQL databases (currently using Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Windows 2008 R2). There are several instances with several DBs each. I have purchased SQL server 2017 licenses to upgrade but would also like to improve our DR solution.
Our current DR solution is to backup the DB in SQL every night and copy it to a file share at the DR site. This would then get restored at the other end when required. Not ideal, as it only gives a 24 hour RPO, but it works.
As I am building new servers for the upgrade (Windows 2016 VMs on VMware ESX hosts) I would like to consider other options to give us real-time replication and a faster restore. The dream would be to have a server powered on and running SQL at the DR site waiting to be manually activated in a DR scenario.
Licensing is also a consideration - I don't want a solution that requires a license for the DR site that will (hopefully) never get used). I can only afford the license for our main site.
The load is low (about 50 users all at one site) and the DBs are only a few GB in size. The ESX hosts are standalone at each site with no shared storage across sites.
Any suggestions of how best to proceed would be gratefully received! I guess I can't use a Failover Cluster Instance without shared storage between the two sites?