For databases that must support a highly available system, establishing a federation of database servers lets you spread the processing load across a group of servers by horizontally partitioning the data in a SQL Server database. These servers are managed independently, but cooperate to process requests on the database.

The topics in this section provide the information to help you understand, design, and implement a federation of database servers.

 In This Section

Topic	Description
Understanding Federated Database Servers	Provides an overview of federated database servers and compares their implementation to a single-server system.
Designing Federated Database Servers	Provides general planning guidelines for how to structure your partitions and configure for high availability.
Implementing Federated Database Servers	Explains how to implement distributed partitioned views, modify data, and perform backup and restore operations on a federation of database servers.

 See Also

Other Resources

Troubleshooting (Database Engine)

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Getting SQL Server 2008 Assistance