>>At the moment we've got one physical server acting as our SQL Server (2012 Standard edition), but we want Always On High Availability.
>>
>>Today we got a sales pitch from Vision Solutions on their Double-Take solution that on fail-over reboots it's backup machine and you're in business again after a few minutes.
>>
>>Has anybody used Double-Take?
>>What, in general, do you say about clustering, Always On, High Availablity for SQL Server?
>>Should we wait for SQL Server 2016?
>>
>>Thanks
>
>Why not using SQL Server mirroring with a witness? It doesn't have the demands of clustering and supports automatic failover via the connection string.

Thanks and thanks to Sergei, too.

Here's another related question:

The IT guy thinks that if we store the MDF and LDFs on a central storage device (e.g. Nimble) and the SQL Server machine (VM) fails then all we have to do is fire up another VM with SQL Server installed on it and have it attach to the MDF and LDF files.

I need to convince him that this really won't work because the MDF and LDFs were not properly detached. Sure, there are iffy workarounds, but I don't want to go there in a DR situation.

I'd like to do this properly and I believe (not an expert) that we need to do this within the tools that MS SQL Server comes with. Again, my preference is to wait for SQL 2016 to come out...