Case Study: Migrating Stand-Alone SQL Servers to a High-Availability Solution
Overview
When a company relies on its database servers to support thousands of customers, uptime and reliability are non-negotiable. A client with more than 20,000 customers was running mission-critical services on two stand-alone SQL database servers—one on SQL Server 2005 and the other on SQL Server 2008. With these versions long past their support lifecycle, the company needed a modern, robust, and highly available solution.
Sovereign Systems helped them upgrade to the latest version of SQL Server and transition to a multi-location SQL Availability Group, ensuring better reliability, performance, and business continuity.
Challenges
Outdated SQL versions – The customer was running unsupported versions, increasing security risks and limiting functionality.
No high availability – Stand-alone servers meant no automatic failover, putting uptime at risk.
Mission-critical databases – Any migration had to be executed without disrupting services for thousands of customers.
Our Solution
To meet these challenges, we designed a multi-step migration plan that prioritized security, performance, and zero downtime:
Upgrade SQL servers – We migrated databases from an outdated SQL Server to a more current SQL Server with Availability Group, providing an immediate performance and security boost.
Deploy SQL Availability Group – We implemented a multi-location SQL Availability Group, enabling automatic failover and significantly reducing downtime risks.
Comprehensive testing – Before transitioning production workloads, we rigorously tested the new SQL environment to ensure stability and performance.
Final migration – We successfully moved high-volume production databases to the new servers with no unscheduled downtime.
Results
Modernized SQL infrastructure – The client was now on a supported SQL Server version with enhanced performance and security.
Improved uptime and redundancy – The SQL Availability Group ensured continuous operations, even in the event of a server failure.
Bumpless transition – Despite handling many transactions daily, the migration was completed without disruption.
Conclusion
By upgrading to a modern SQL environment and implementing a high-availability solution, the client benefitted from better security, performance, and reliability—ensuring their services ran smoothly for the more than 20,000 customers who depended on them.
Thinking about upgrading your SQL infrastructure? Sovereign Systems can help you plan and execute a migration. Let’s talk.