Good day all,
I’m working on a solution with a third party on a project for a client. Project is for call recording and live monitoring software. Third party wants to use call recording software from a firm called Crystal Quality (http://www.crystalrs.com/). Client has a main site and 4 branch offices. The system needs to be fully redundant and in case of a branch connection loss the main site needs to listen to recordings from the branch site that were made till the connection loss. Recording software supports Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle database. Third party proposed 2 servers on each location and 2 servers on the main site. I’m not much of a database expert so here are my doubts. We still haven’t received trial licenses for the recording software but from what I could tell the audio files are saved on the files system and only referenced paths are stored in the database. So what would be the best choice of action and what Microsoft SQL Server versions supports the scenario. We think to use a SQL active/passive cluster scenario on all sites with database replication or mirroring from the branch offices to the main site. Also we need to use DFSR replication or scripts to replicate audio files that are stored on the file system. We also need to make the recording software highly available but it has no by design mechanism for it so I haven’t used a non-Microsoft product in a NLB or cluster scenario. Is it possible to use Microsoft NLB or cluster for the recording software? I don’t know if the recording software needs to be Microsoft cluster or NLB aware for it to work? I don’t know if I provided enough information but any kind of help or input would be appreciated.

Good day,

I've been out of the country working on a project so I couldn't replay immediately. Thank you for suggestions.
Unfortunately we are stuck with the software and the databases it supports. When we get the trial license I'll try alternative databases because they were my first choice in the matter but we will probably lose support and warranty. Each site will has a PBX so all branch offices will be autonomous in that way. Because the time frame is short vendor can't implement anything. StarWind Virtual San is a good solution for the SQL redundancy and in that way we could cut cost on the SQL licenses and maybe the recording application can be done in the same way. I've been looking at Xen and DRBD but because I've only done that in my lab I'm not confident enough to propose that solution. If we go down the path of virtualization and distributive replicated storage I don't know to make the branch offices SQL servers available if the branch office loses network connectivity or something goes wrong. I guess the databases from each branch office can be replicated or mirrored to the main office and maybe even SQL express license will be sufficient for that. ButI don't have experience with MS SQL replication or mirroring. Also there is one more problem with virtualization because that software requires a PCI express card on each server for redundancy that is used for recording the analog lines. I don't know if it's possible to represent both cards to a single VM where the recording software resides and what drivers are available for it. Of course I'll test every solution in a lab environment and see in what I'm confident enough to do.

Good day,

I've been out of the country working on a project so I couldn't replay immediately. Thank you for suggestions.
Unfortunately we are stuck with the software and the databases it supports. When we get the trial license I'll try alternative databases because they were my first choice in the matter but we will probably lose support and warranty. Each site will has a PBX so all branch offices will be autonomous in that way. Because the time frame is short vendor can't implement anything. StarWind Virtual San is a good solution for the SQL redundancy and in that way we could cut cost on the SQL licenses and maybe the recording application can be done in the same way. I've been looking at Xen and DRBD but because I've only done that in my lab I'm not confident enough to propose that solution. If we go down the path of virtualization and distributive replicated storage I don't know to make the branch offices SQL servers available if the branch office loses network connectivity or something goes wrong. I guess the databases from each branch office can be replicated or mirrored to the main office and maybe even SQL express license will be sufficient for that. ButI don't have experience with MS SQL replication or mirroring. Also there is one more problem with virtualization because that software requires a PCI express card on each server for redundancy that is used for recording the analog lines. I don't know if it's possible to represent both cards to a single VM where the recording software resides and what drivers are available for it. Of course I'll test every solution in a lab environment and see in what I'm confident enough to do.

Well i don't know if the network connectivity would be good enough to make a clustered SQL farm. I don't know the requirements for bandwidth and latency for SQL Server Multi-Subnet Failover Cluster. From what I could gather most likely scenario would be that the branches have their individual database and that their databases would be mirrored or replicated to the main site. Of course it would be easier to have one database but i don't know if it will be double. What kind of Microsoft SQL license would be required for any of these scenarios ? I also need to make the software highly available. Recording software will be installed on the main site and in each branch location. In each location the software needs to be highly available but it doesn't have any kind of feature by design. So can Microsoft NLB or cluster be used in this scenario and dose the software need to be aware of it for it to work ? Each site will have 2x Servers for redundancy.

Good day all,
I’m working on a solution with a third party on a project for a client. Project is for call recording and live monitoring software. Third party wants to use call recording software from a firm called Crystal Quality (http://www.crystalrs.com/). Client has a main site and 4 branch offices. The system needs to be fully redundant and in case of a branch connection loss the main site needs to listen to recordings from the branch site that were made till the connection loss. Recording software supports Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle database. Third party proposed 2 servers on each location and 2 servers on the main site. I’m not much of a database expert so here are my doubts. We still haven’t received trial licenses for the recording software but from what I could tell the audio files are saved on the files system and only referenced paths are stored in the database. So what would be the best choice of action and what Microsoft SQL Server versions supports the scenario. We think to use a SQL active/passive cluster scenario on all sites with database replication or mirroring from the branch offices to the main site. Also we need to use DFSR replication or scripts to replicate audio files that are stored on the file system. We also need to make the recording software highly available but it has no by design mechanism for it so I haven’t used a non-Microsoft product in a NLB or cluster scenario. Is it possible to use Microsoft NLB or cluster for the recording software? I don’t know if the recording software needs to be Microsoft cluster or NLB aware for it to work? I don’t know if I provided enough information but any kind of help or input would be appreciated.