Clustering Options

What options do I have to cluster SQL server 2005? Currently we have three servers that can be used for the cluster. We currently don't have any shared storage, but plan on getting a SAN down the road. What do you guys recommend? I would like to have some redundancy in the database server.

go for 3 node cluster and spread across the load of the server in 2 servers and keep the third as failover option.

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I'm not sure what's is what you want to do. A Cluster solution involves a cross wire between two server at minimun or a SAN array.

On the other hand, we have the next High Aviability options in SQL 2005:

Database Mirroring

Log Shipping

Database Mirroring and Log Shipping require at least two server and more depending on the configuration you want to select:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190202.aspx

|||You must have shared storage (whether its a SAN or direct attached storage) to use fail-over clustering in SQL Server 2005. You can use Database Mirroring to have a redundant copy of a database without shared storage, so it depends on what you are trying to do. Database mirroring works at the database level, while fail-over clustering works at the instance level.