Logshipping vs Database Mirroring

Applies to : SQL Server 2005

With Log Shipping:
Data Transfer: T-Logs are backed up and transferred to secondary server

Transactional Consistency: All committed and un-committed are transferred

Server Limitation: Can be applied to multiple stand-by servers

Failover: Manual Failover Duration: Can take more than 30 mins

Role Change: Role change is manual

Client Re-direction: Manual changes required

With Database Mirroring:
Data Transfer: Individual T-Log records are transferred using TCP endpoints

Transactional Consistency: Only committed transactions are transferred

Server Limitation: Can be applied to only one mirror server

Failover: AutomaticFailover

Duration: Failover is fast, sometimes <>

Role Change: Role change is fully automatic

Client Re-direction: Fully automatic as it uses .NET 2.0