June 12, 2011 at 5:33 am
Hi,
I have a infrastructure of Active\Passive and Active\Active cluster of SQL Server 2005. I am told to install latest Service Pack on these cluster environment. I don't know where to start from. Please help.
Thanks in advance.
June 12, 2011 at 9:55 am
First, if you've never done this, tell your manager you don't know how to do this. Screwing up a cluster without warning someone is way worse than anything else. You aren't likely to get fired for not knowing, but you might if you wreck the cluster.
Second, the latest service pack for SQL Server 2005 is SP4: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=b953e84f-9307-405e-bceb-47bd345baece
The Readme file will have instructions, but basically you install on one node, fail over, and install on the other node.
June 12, 2011 at 10:49 am
In addition to Steve's advice, you need to put together the plan for the downtime.
Step 1: Document cluster configuration
Step 2: Document service accounts used for each service
Step 3: Document AD service groups used for each service account
Once you have the above documentation, you should have a start on the information you will need to rebuild the cluster if things go very badly. Then, the upgrade itself needs to be planned out:
Step 1: Shutdown applications (e.g. web servers, application servers, etc...)
Step 2: Verify all users logged off (might need to kill the user logins here)
Step 3: Backup all databases before the upgrade
Step 4: Validate no other users logged into either node in the cluster, and make sure you are only logged into the active node (if there are any logins on the passive node, the upgrade will fail)
Step 5: Execute the service pack upgrade
Step 6: Validate passive node upgraded successfully (note: as of SP3, both nodes are upgraded for all components. To validate, run the service pack on the passive node)
Step 7: Restart the passive node (Node B)
Step 8: Once passive node has been restarted, move the cluster groups from active node to passive node.
Step 9: Restart Node A
Step 10: Once this has been restarted, move the cluster groups back
Step 11: Restart the applications
Step 12: Validate and test the applications
This is just a basic outline - you need to fill it out with details and add any steps that are required for your organization and systems.
As Steve stated - follow up with your Manager and let them know that you do not know what to do. Try to get someone who has done this before to review and validate your plan. We can only to a high level plan, we don't know your systems or processes - so there could be things we will miss.
Jeffrey Williams
“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”
― Charles R. Swindoll
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