March 14, 2012 at 8:26 am
We have a two-node active passive Windows 2008 Cluster ( having SQL 2008 instance running on it).
To comply the newly established naming convention, we need to rename the physical nodes to some new names.
We'll NOT change the Cluster name/the virtual server name/the SQL instance name.
All we want to change is the physical server names.
ServerName changing is simple, but not sure about the risk of breaking the Cluster or even worse, the SQL server.
The steps I am having in mind is:
First evict the passive node, and change the name and then add the new name back to cluster, and then fail over and do the same on the 'active' node.
Has anyone done this before? what are the best steps to follow?
TIA!
March 14, 2012 at 10:02 am
This is how I would do it, but I never had to do it actually.
I found this thread that should put you in the right direction.
-- Gianluca Sartori
March 14, 2012 at 11:58 am
Thanks a lot for the pointer, Gianluca. That is quite helpful.
Looks like there is more to it.
I may reconsider if this is worth to doing it just to comply with the 'standard'
March 14, 2012 at 12:32 pm
I'm actually a little surprised they are making you change them on a production machine.. It is usually viewed as too risky and that new standards are not retroactively applied (even though that would often be great)..
CEWII
March 15, 2012 at 3:52 am
Elliott Whitlow (3/14/2012)
I'm actually a little surprised they are making you change them on a production machine.. It is usually viewed as too risky and that new standards are not retroactively applied (even though that would often be great)..CEWII
Actually, I find these "naming standards" a bit ridiculous.
Try changing the machine name on a production server with Tomcat + Apache + Oracle running on Linux. Or, even better, try renaming a z/OS machine (AS/400).
At my last workplace they were very fond of naming conventions (and changing them...) and the time spent troubleshooting applications after renaming the machines was really fun.
Why wouldn't a CNAME record in DNS do the same?
-- Gianluca Sartori
March 19, 2012 at 5:15 am
Changing a server name after SQL is installed takes time and money. Changing a SQL instance name also takes time and money. If you have already deployed this to end users then you have to add risk of things breaking and cost of downtime.
Realising you have made a mistake while building a server and having to rebuild it to fix the problem is one thing, and worth doing. Renaming a server or instance after deployment it totally different.
Before going ahead with any such change for an instance you have deployed, work out the cost of doing this and present it to your management. Ask them if this is the most productive use of your time. Maybe give them an estimate of how many queries you could tune given the same amount of time and money. The cost of lost opportunity to do something that benefits the business would make any competant manager tell you to leave the server and instance names just as they are.
If they still want you to do the name change, then make sure your CV is up to date, as there really does not seem much work left to do in your organisation.
Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.
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March 19, 2012 at 9:35 am
DBA in Unit 7 (3/14/2012)
Thanks a lot for the pointer, Gianluca. That is quite helpful.Looks like there is more to it.
I may reconsider if this is worth to doing it just to comply with the 'standard'
It does initially look like quite a bit of work, the only time consuming part is the maintenance of the SQL Server instance(s) to add\remove the nodes.
At the end of the day how important is it to your organsation to change the actual node names?
How many instances take part in the cluster?
If you only have a couple of instances it would be worthwhile and wouldn't take too long, if you have lots of instances i would tend to leave it be unless there was a force in change from superiors.
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