As to the cited doc from 2005: This seems to refer to v9 (ASA 9), whereas the HA feature was introduced with the next version (SQL Anywhere 10). So I would think that nowadays one would surely prefer the builtin HA feature over a "foreign one".

And no, you don't need Veritas Cluster Service to use the builtin HA feature (I don't know where this may be told...) - they are simply two different methods.

To cite some properties of the builtin HA feature:

• No special hardware, such as a shared disk is required.
• No special software (for clustering, for example) is required.
• No particular operating system version is required.

While Volker is correct (we generally recommend to use the SQL Anywhere High-Availability add-on component), the article you have linked is still valid for current versions of Windows / SQL Anywhere (e.g. Setting up SQL Anywhere in a service for an "active-passive" Microsoft Cluster). While this should technically work, the advantages of using the SQL Anywhere High-Availability add-on option over the Microsoft clustering is that you have the option of using the mirrored database as a "read-only" server (in versions 11 and up) - you cannot do this with the Microsoft clustering technology.

We currently have a new draft of this document internally to update it to modern versions of SQL Anywhere (e.g. 12) and modern versions of Windows Server (e.g. 2008) - the theory is the same, but the step-by-step instructions / screenshots have changed slightly.

We will try to publish this updated article soon. Thanks for your feedback.