You configure SQL Server for disaster recovery before configuring SharePoint Server.

Configuring SQL Server for disaster recovery is covered in the SQL Server solutions guides.

See Where to get more information.

Figure: Example SharePoint Server disaster recovery configuration shows an example SharePoint Server disaster recovery configuration.

The example configuration for SharePoint disaster recovery shows SharePoint configured in a separate cluster from SQL Server. However, you can optionally configure SharePoint Server in the same cluster as SQL Server if all systems use the same operating system.

In the example setup, there are eight SharePoint servers, four for the primary site and four for the secondary site. This is an example only; any supported farm configuration can be used. The SharePoint nodes will form two separate clusters, one at the primary site and one at the secondary site.

The sample setup for SQL Server has four servers, two for the primary site and two for the secondary site. The nodes will form two separate clusters, one at the primary site and one at the secondary site. Disaster recovery configuration for SQL Server configures a global cluster with replication of the databases from the primary to the secondary site.

If the SQL Server primary site fails, the replicated SQL Server databases on the secondary site come online, along with SQL Server. In addition, the SharePoint Servers on the secondary site will automatically start responding to clients.

If the SharePoint Servers fail on the primary site, but SQL Server remains online on the primary site, you would need to manually switch the SQL Server service group to the secondary site. This would be necessary for the secondary site SharePoint servers to respond to clients.