Cluster memory issue

  • I'm currently running 2 SQl Instance as an active/active cluster.

    Both servers are identical running windows 2000 Advance server.

    SQL Server Enterprise 2000 with settings exactly the same on both servers,

    8GB of memory, both servers are new builds, Windows sees all the memory, boot.ini as /3gb /pae switches and SQL’s are awe configured.

     

    Instance 1 running as default virtual server on node 1

    Max Server memory 7406

    SQL runs using 7.23GB of memory.

     

    Instance 2 running as named instance of virtual server on node 2

    Max Server memory 7406

    SQL runs using only 3.73 GB as max

     

    How can I get node 2 to also use 7.23GB.

     

    I'm getting excessive paging so SQL would use more memory if it could get it.

  • Regarding your questions, i can't think of anything else except just verify all the settings which you have provided above and make sure that there is not any other process eating up memory.

    But something you might want to consider is your memory settings. With what i understand, SQL Server does dynamically allocate/release memory. This is fine when the cluster is balanced but When the cluster fails over and you have both instances running on the same node, from the memory usage stats which you provided above, you might run into a scenario where your server would choke down because of lack of memory or the second instance not come up.

     

  • I second the motion of sa24.  The total combined memory being used by both instance should not exceed the total memory of each server, just in case one system failed over to the other.

  • Don't forget to leave memory for the OS.  You should allow for 1-2 gigs for the OS after a failover occurs.  With 8 gigs of RAM on each node, both instances of MS SQL Server should run at 3 - 3.5 gigs max.  Otherwise during a failover the failed node will be running entirely using virtual memory and will be paging constantly.

     

     

  • Could it be the database in second instance do not need more memory to run? You could switch the SQL Server instance1 to node2 to test that.

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