Microsoft SQL Server provides the ability to use log shipping, which can increase a database's availability by automatically copying and restoring the database transaction logs to another database on a standby server.
The standby server receives all changes made to the original database. Therefore, it is an exact duplicate of the original database that is out of date only by the delay in the copy-and-load process.
This failover solution does involve manual intervention. In the event that the server on which the original database resides becomes unavailable, the database administrator must perform steps to bring the standby server online.
For more information on log shipping, see the following Microsoft documents:
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Log Shipping Administration (Microsoft Docs) at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190016(v=sql.105).aspx.