Managed service plans
We run your environment, with 24/7 monitoring, maintenance, and proactive improvement.
High availability and disaster recovery
Availability is a design decision, made before the outage that tests it. Fortified Data designs, builds, and failover-tests high availability and disaster recovery against the recovery time and recovery point objectives your business has set, so the first real failover is not the first one anyone has run.
Failover tested before go-live. Senior US-based consultants.
What is high availability and disaster recovery?
High availability keeps a database running through the failure of a server or component, usually with automatic failover. Disaster recovery restores service after the loss of a site or environment. Most designs need both, set against separate recovery objectives.
What an HA/DR engagement includes
Readiness review
Your current servers, SQL Server installation, database inventory, and configuration, checked for what an availability design requires.
Cluster and availability group build
Windows Server Failover Cluster, availability groups, and listeners, with new SQL Server installations where needed.
Moving databases into the new environment
Planned and sequenced around your maintenance windows.
Failover validation
Automatic and manual failover scenarios tested and confirmed before go-live.
As-built documentation
Server names, IP addresses, listeners, and critical services, written for the team that runs the environment next.
Post-implementation support
Stabilization support and a documented project close-out.
Platforms
SQL Server Always On availability groups and Windows Server Failover Clustering, Azure SQL Managed Instance failover groups, and MySQL failover orchestration.
Your team's part
Your application team updates connection strings and tests the applications against the new environment; we coordinate the failover testing and cutover with them.
Keeping it working after go-live
An availability design is only as good as its last failover test. Our Signature plan manages your HA/DR environment and tests failover every year.
Common questions about high availability and disaster recovery
What is the difference between high availability and disaster recovery?
High availability keeps a database running through the failure of a server or component, usually with automatic failover. Disaster recovery restores service after the loss of a site or environment. Most designs need both, set against separate recovery objectives.
How is failover tested?
Automatic and manual failover scenarios are run and confirmed before go-live, and the results are recorded in the as-built documentation.
Can high availability be added during an upgrade or migration?
Yes. Many of our upgrade projects include a new availability group, built as part of the move.
Who maintains the environment afterwards?
Your team, with the documentation and knowledge transfer from the project, or Fortified Data under a Signature managed service plan.
Three ways to work with us
An availability design is a project with an end date. If you would rather we ran the environment, or you want senior specialists on call for the next one, these are the other ways to work with us.
On-Call DBA
A guaranteed 15-minute emergency response plus monthly on-demand hours that bank when unused.
Database consulting and projects
Project-based engagements for migrations, performance tuning, data modernization, business intelligence, and high availability and disaster recovery.
Find out what your recovery objectives require
The first conversation covers your current environment, the recovery time and recovery point your business needs, and the gap between the two.
Let us show you what's possible.