hotbackup on ,2000 sql server

have to do hotbackup on ,2000 sql server
so that anytime i have 2 sql server; we just write to one server and other as live backup
whats the best strategy ??
20 gb/ 20 user
will distributer/subscirber do the needfule ?
does it need a DTS/SNAp shot versionIt all depends how much you can efford to loose !

There could be

Replication setup
or
Log shipping

Third solution is clustering.

Everything hs its own Plus and Minuses|||can u give me more details
pls|||Clustering is not a hot-standby solution.|||I agree it is not a DB level backup but it provides backup for SQL Server Server itself. For databfiles , there could be SAn with some sort of Raid, Lshipping or whatever. Like I said all depends on wht he is looking for|||Clustering is not a hot-standby solution.Huh? Exactly how much "hotter" can you get than a cluster? When one box in a cluster fails, another takes over without the client even being aware of anything happening.

-PatP|||That's exactly why it's not considered as hot stand-by solution, but rather a fail-over solution.|||If he is referring to a "Hot Backup" as it is in Oracle, he wants to do an online database backup, which is how it is on SQL Server and Sybase. In Oracle, the equivalent requires either:

1. A full export of the database.
2. A hot backup of the database (requires Archive Log Mode to be set on) and tablespaces placed in "begin backup" "copy Datafile" "end backup"

If this is what you want, the "backup database" command is performed while SQL Server and databases are online, there is not need to stop the SQL Server in order to get a database backup.|||Horacle? Who said anything about horacle?|||There is no such thing called "Horacle", but only Oracle - watch your fingers mister :-) JK
Seriously, hot backup in Oracle means it takes one User's tablespace off-line at a time and used the O/S to copy data file(s). For SQL Server 7.0 and 2000, there is no "hot backup" but only a "fuzzy" backup while the database is still online, which some un-commited transactions were not included after the checkpoint.
Clustering is not a pure "Hot backup" either, because if the SAN is went down, there goes your cluster's nodes. Log-Shipping to a standby server is also not a "hot backup" in term of timing, because it take time & manually to switch to the standby server. On other hand, the standby has almost exactly the copy of the production server (except for the very last transaction(s) that hasn't record/backup because of the crash, so in term of the full DB backup & transaction logs backup, the log shipping might be considered a "hot backup" only in this context. The same true is for replication method.|||I think you're confused between "hot/warm standby" and what you came up on-the-fly as "hot backup", which I don't even know where you came up with...