Relevance of  SQL Server 2008 High Availability 

What is High Availability?

This section introduces several SQL Server high-availability solutions that improve the availability of servers or databases. A high-availability solution masks the effects of a hardware or software failure and maintains the availability of applications so that the perceived downtime for users is minimized

 Features of  High Availability

• Recover corrupt data pages from a mirror server with enhanced database mirroring features

• Take advantage of failover clustering enhancements in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft Windows Server 2008

• Add new nodes to a peer-to-peer replication solution without taking applications offline

• Improve restore times and reduce backup volume size with new support for backup compression

• Improve concurrency with locking enhancements

• Reduce downtime for hardware maintenance with Hot-Add CPU capabilities

• Use Resource Governor to proactively control workload prioritization

 High Availability Topics

w  Replication, Log Shipping, Database Mirroring, Failover Clustering

Microsoft link (reference)

www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/high-availability.aspx