Is there any way to keep SQL server instance name same as server in Active passive SQL cluster?

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Is there any way to keep SQL server instance name same as server in Active passive SQL cluster?

sntiwary

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November 28, 2006 at 11:26 am

#61729

Is there any way to keep SQL server instance name same as server name in Active passive SQL cluster?
Regards,
SNT

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K. Brian Kelley SSC Guru Points: 114642 More actions · Answer 1

If you are only installing one instance on a cluster, you can install a default instance. That means it'll connect as whatever the virtual name is. For instance, if the virtual name is VirtualSQL, then users would connect to VirtualSQL.

If you want to install a named instance, regardless on the # of instances on the cluster, you can do that as well. For instance, if you wanted a named instance of VirtualSQL on the virtual server named VirtualSQL, you could do that, and it would lead to a SQL Server reference of VirtualSQL\VirtualSQL.

K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley

sntiwary Hall of Fame Points: 3475 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks for your reply Brian!

I think I could not put the question correctly.

My requirement is like this:

Currently, I have one node (TS1SQL01) and there is default SQL instance installed so SQL instance name is also TS1SQL01 where all the application are connecting. Now I am migrating this into Active/passive clustering with 2 nodes as TS1SQL01 & TS1SQL02. Now I don't want to change my aplication connection string. so can we put the the virtual SQL name as TS1SQL01 ? wil not be DNS issue with the node name TS1SQL01?

Is there any other way to do this?

I can think of changing the nodes name to some other names but dont want to do that

Regards

SNT

K. Brian Kelley SSC Guru Points: 114642 More actions · Answer 3

The virtual name has to be different from the physical node names. One option would be to rename the TS1SQL01 node to some other name (and it would make sense to rename TS1SQL02 to match it). That would allow for the virtual name to be TS1SQL01. Otherwise, you're going to have to look at changing the connection strings on your apps. I would probably go for the latter (modifying the connection strings) if the TS1SQL01 and TS1SQL02 match some sort of naming standard, but then I'm speaking at it from a server support perspective. Every "one off" makes it harder on the server guys.

K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley

Yelena Varshal SSC-Dedicated Points: 34286 More actions · Answer 4

To avoid this problem you would want to have DNS alias that is not the server name. The app should use this DNS alias for connection. Then if you are migrating to another server name the only thing you have to do is to re-point the alias to another server name on DNS server.

Regards,Yelena Varsha

K. Brian Kelley SSC Guru Points: 114642 More actions · Answer 5

This is true if you aren't having to take things like Kerberos and/or TLS into account. If those aren't a concern you can also forcibly alias at the client by configuring an alias using cliconfg.exe.

K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley