Replication options for corporates

It’s inevitable that all companies prepare reports and other publications at various times throughout the year. Whether they're monthly, quarterly, or annually, these reports typically require the generation of a great deal of data. At the same time, the United States has recently instituted more stringent reporting policies for public companies, and the European Union is following suit.
Loss of critical data could mean fiscal, corporate-wide, and even personal disaster if it causes missed reporting deadlines. Your organization must plan how it will recover in time from a possible disaster to meet these deadlines.
Replication or SQL server replication is a great option to ensure little or no data loss occurs during a hardware system disaster. Hardware-based solutions protect against data loss, but this protection comes at a price.

However this protection comes at a price. That price means both a higher cost than most solutions as well as a performance impact on the production systems due to the "two-phase commit" method of data protection that nearly all hardware-based replication tools use.

Software-based replication (also called host-based), exchange replication, exchange server replication is another option. At a lower cost and generally without a performance impact, these tools replicate at either the block- or byte-level using an asynchronous methodology.
If replication is too expensive, snapshot technologies are another option. Available choices include hardware-based solutions from your current vendors or software-based solutions from Microsoft and many third parties (depending on your operating system).
Snapshot technologies allow you to independently take point-in-time copies of data on a set schedule or on demand. While this method is still not as effective as replication, it allows you to rescue a much larger portion of your data after a disaster than a once-per-day tape backup alone. No matter what combination of solutions you choose, preparing to recover on a moment's notice during reporting periods is a vital part of modern business. Data loss isn't a good reason to miss reporting deadlines, and your organization could even incur stiff penalties and other repercussions for skipping reports.

Virtualization and its Benefits

Virtualization is being increasingly used by IT departments for server consolidation and testing purposes. Virtual servers are used to reduce operational costs and to improve system efficiency. The growth in virtual servers has created challenges for IT departments regarding high availability and data protection. It is not enough to protect physical servers but also virtual servers, as they contain business critical data and information. Virtual servers offer the flexibility, but at the same time if a single physical server containing multiple virtual servers fails, then impact of data loss is enormous.
Virtualization Benefits

Companies are adopting virtualization at a rapid speed because of thetremendous benefit it offers and some of them include:
· Server Consolidation – Virtualization helps to consolidate multiple servers into one single physical server, thus offering improved operational performance.
· Reduced Hardware Costs – As the number of physical servers goes down, the cost of servers and associated costs like IT infrastructure, space etc. will also decrease tremendously.
· Improved Application Security – By having a separate application in each virtual machine, any vulnerability is segregated and it does not affect other applications.
· Reduced Maintenance – Since virtual servers can easily be relocated and migrated, maintenance of hardware and software can be done with minimal downtime.
· Enhanced Scalability – The ease with which virtual servers can be deployed will result in improved scalability of IT implementation.

Know more and read more on SQL server high availability and SQL server replication for virtualization.