I use DNS aliases all the time to avoid renaming instances. I usually do it
through a central DNS server instead of local hosts files.

--
Geoff N. Hiten
Senior SQL Infrastructure Consultant
Microsoft SQL Server MVP


"Curtis Morrison" <curtmorrison (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

On Apr 13, 4:04 pm, "Andrew J. Kelly" <sqlmvpnooos... (AT) shadhawk (DOT) com>
wrote:
Thanks Andrew! I'm probably going to go with log shipping, which leads
me to my next problem. If I ship to another instance, on another
virtual server in the cluster, the connection string changes. From
everything I know about clustering, am I right in saying that the only
way to connect to this is to point the application to the new
instance? Have you ever tried using a DNS host, where you would have a
master host file that points to the active instance and change it as
needed - any thoughts on doing this, besides the negative of waiting
for DNS propagation?