Disaster Recovery stack for Application Server

Application Server Guard is the proper way to go about this. However I need to 1st rig up some sort of fail over stack immediately. After that we are rolling a RAC/SAN out into production and then I can persuade MGMT that Application Server Guard is the proper solution long term. I have worked with Data Guard and am comfortable with the technology.

So I am effectively looking for a poor mans Application Server Guard in the short term. I believe it to be something like this:

1) Without 'Hostname Symmetry' prepare a 2nd stack of DB-MDR/ID MGMT/Midtier portal/webcache [done]
2) Figure out a process for migrating new OID/SSO users from production to failover stack on a nightly basis [failed]
3) Define a process for migrating an application .ear deployment and a Transport Set delta. Ensure this works repeatedly.[unknown - production changes are not done this way]

My hope is that someone has done this or attempted to do this or can point out the folly of not going directly to Application Server Guard.

Thanks!