April 10, 2006 at 10:59 pm
Hi Gurus,
Is it possible to change the Virtual Cluster name
For eg.
I 've a Cluster Virtual Server Name TestSQL It has to two nodes TestSQL01 and TestSQL02. Can i go ahead and change the virtual server name to PRODSQL. Is it possible, if yes how much time it will take approximately.
Please correct & guide me, if you found any mistakes on my questions.
warmest
Jayakumar K.
Thanks
Jay
http://www.sqldbops.com
April 12, 2006 at 10:50 am
I'd opt for using a DNS alias - it's the quickest and easiest way. Besides, this then has absolutely no impact on the cluster or the physical nodes.
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
April 12, 2006 at 11:27 am
See KB article 307336. Looks like you'd have to rebuild the Cluster.
April 12, 2006 at 6:24 pm
Tried it once myself, it's a serious hassle. Ended up just rebuilding the thing.
April 13, 2006 at 7:05 am
Rudy,
Have you ever actually used an alias to "point" to an existing SQL cluster name?? This is exactly what I want to do as part of a Disaster Recovery plan - however the network manager/Active Directory person says it can't be done since it is a cluster name rather than a machine name.
Thanks
April 13, 2006 at 10:24 am
Tell your AD guy to hit the books on networking. This has absolutely nothing to do with AD at all it's in DNS management. However you must be a Domain Admin to modify DNS to add the ALIAS(es) that you need. For example I'll use production examples from my site with the names slightly modified:
First a SQL cluster:
Primary cluster node: XXX-YY-SQL-01A
Secondary cluster node: XXX-YY-SQL-01B
Cluster Name: XXX-YY-SQL-01
SQL Server Instance: XXX-YY-SQL-011
DNS Alias(es) ZZZDATA
ZZZDATA.DOMAIN-NAME.ORG
ZZZDATA.DOMAIN-NAME.ANOTHER-QUALIFIER.ORG
All DNS Aliases point to the IP address of XXX-YY-SQL-011
The original vendor application was always looking for ZZZDATA on a single server (which they built). We moved the databases to a SQL Server cluster for both fault tolerance and standardization of SQL Servers - so we faced the same issue. We performed a little testing to make sure that the application still functioned. And viola !
Standalone SQL Server
Original (failed) server: XXX-YY-SQL-04
DR site server: XXX-YY-SQL-02
DNS Alias(es) XXX-YY-SQL-04
XXX-YY-SQL-04.DOMAIN-NAME.ORG
XXX-YY-SQL-04.DOMAIN-NAME.ANOTHER-QUALIFIER.ORG
All DNS Aliases point to the IP address of XXX-YY-SQL-04
In the standaolne instance we actually had a hardware failure (motherboard meltdown - ughhh). We transferred the databases to the DR server made the DNS modification and were back in production in a few hours.
Now here's a couple of points to remember. First test your application to make sure. we actually have one vendor application that this does not work for. Why, neither us nor the vendor can figure this out as of late. However 99% of them should work. Second, after the DNS changes (aliases) have been added, they need tio replicate within your network/domain (the default time is 15 minutes) we allow 30 minutes to be safe. Third, Windows does this wonderful (ughh) thing called DNS caching. This means that even if you make the changes to DNS and they replicate, some if not all client will have issues connecting (ping returns the old information). To remedy this simply execute an IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS then you're home free.
By the way, here's the shortcut path to the DNS Managment msc too:
%windir%\system32\dnsmgmt.msc
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
April 13, 2006 at 3:40 pm
Rudy,
THANK YOU for your detailed explanantion.
Tim
Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply