Resilient hosting - Principal, Mirror and Witness SQL Server support

Dean Lynn asked on June 17, 2015 19:48

I am currently defining the hosting architecture for a new Kentico project.

I plan to build resilience into the design through the inclusion of multiple content delivery servers and mirrored databases.

One solution for providing database resilience with automatic failover capabilities is to configure Principal, Mirror and Witness instances:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189852.aspx

This would require the failover partner connection string parameter to work as expected with Kentico:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5h52hef8%28v=vs.110%29.aspx

Can anyone confirm if this hosting architecture will work as expected?
Are you aware of any gotchas of the above approach?
Can you suggest an alternative solution that is tried-and-tested?

Thanks in advance,

Dean

Recent Answers

Brenden Kehren answered on June 17, 2015 23:42

Kentico isn't processing the connection string, its simply passing it to the SQL server to get the proper handshake. So if adding the additional attribute in is what you need, then go for it. If you don't get a solid answer here from someone in the community, you might try emailing support at kentico dot com and referencing this post.

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Jim Spillane answered on June 18, 2015 03:34

Adding ;Failover Partner= has worked as expected for us in a HA web farm configuration. No gotchas.

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Dean Lynn answered on June 18, 2015 13:05

Thank you both for your responses.

Jim: It's good to hear that you have used this property successfully with Kentico. Did you use a witness server for automatic failover (high-safety mode)?

Brenden: Thanks for the pointer, I will also raise this question with Kentico support to see if they can confirm.

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Jim Spillane answered on June 18, 2015 13:33 (last edited on June 18, 2015 13:33)

Yes, a witness server is used. The cluster passed 12 failure tests without any issues.

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