Point a DNS to a SQL Alias (to mask a SQL Instance Name)

  • Question: how, if it is even possible, to assign a DNS to a SQL Alias?

    Goal: have all SQL Server connections use DNS without having to tack on the SQL Alias.

    My setup:

    2 Windows 2008 Servers Enterprise (Portal30, Portal31)

    2 Cluster Groups

    SQL 20005 Standard installed on Cluster Group 1 as the default instance

    SQL 2008 Standard (will be) installed on Cluster Group 2 as an instance (because I can’t install it as a default)

    SQL 2005 has an alias of “SQL2005” setup on both servers

    SQL 2008 (will have) an alias of “SQL2008” setup on both servers

    I would like to assign a DNS of MyDIB3SQL.Portal.[hidden to mask company name].com to SQL2005 that points to the SQL install (easy it’s the default)

    DNS  SQL Alias  SQL default install

    I would like to assign a DNS of MyDIB3SQL.Portal.[hidden to mask company name].com to SQL2008 that points to .\Instance

    DNS  SQL Alias  SQL Instance install

    Business Problem: I would like to have a DNS (MyDIB3SQL.[domain],[xyz].com) point to a SQL Server Instance install. Currently connection strings have to have the instance name appended to the DNS (i.e.: MyDIB3SQL.[domain],[xyz].com\[Instance Name]). My production environment is an Active Active cluster (one SQL 2005, one SQL2008) and from what I can tell, even though I have two failover clusters each containing their own resources and one install of SQL, the hardware requires that only one install can be a default install, the other(s) must be instances. So, I have two instances of SQL, no big deal except my development and qa environments are default instance installs on their own boxes. This means that as code is migrated from dev and qa the connection stings have to be appended to (we use integrated security) for Production to contain the instance name.

    History: I have read many web listings on this issue, some same it can’t be done, others say it can but don’t go into detail. (Here are two examples).

    http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/32326118/active-active-can-somebo.aspx

    http://www.sqlnewsgroups.net/group/microsoft.public.sqlserver.server/topic23833.aspx

  • I may not fully understand your question, but I'll try to answer.

    On a SQL 2008 cluster, every instance of SQL can be a default instance. That's because each cluster group usually only contains one SQL Server, and each cluster group contain's its own unique virtual IP Address, and NetBIOS virtual server name. Thus each can listen of the same port.

    As for DNS, just set up an alias for each cluster group. If your using named instance, people should connect via Alias\Instance or Alias, port number. If you set up all default instances with an alias for each one, the people just have to connect via alias name.

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