SQL CLuster and Instances

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SQL CLuster and Instances

amira

SSChasing Mays

Points: 628
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August 4, 2004 at 10:23 am

#88367

Hi,
Anyone knows for fact that in a SQL clustered environment you can only have one instalnce installed?
I have two large servers that are clustered (MS clustering win2k3) and need to create 6 instances of SQL2000 (3 on each node). Is that possible? If yes, is there any good docs on the how tos?

Thanks
A.

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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

Multiple instance clusters are supported. See Brian Knight's articles on clustering (most of it is applicable to Win2k3).

Also, you might check out the high availability guides from MS:

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 High Availability Series

You're biggest problem is going to be resource contention, especially memory. Keep in mind you need to consider the case where all 6 instances are running on a single node and have the memory and processors on a single box to handle that.

K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley

SQLBill SSC Guru Points: 51440 More actions · Answer 2

Also, make sure you have the appropriate licenses. You are setting up an Active/Active cluster (3 instances on each node). That means you have to have a license for each node. (Rule of thumb-any ACTIVE node must have it's own licenses).

-SQLBill

Gé Brander SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4353 More actions · Answer 3

No problem. Just make sure you install only named instances and do not begin with a defautl instance. Only named instances is the way to go.

Here I support 2 clusters of 2 machines with PROD having 4 instances in active/active - 2/2 and a cluster with ACC/SYS/DEV with on one node 4 ACC instances and on the other node the SYS and DEV instances.

amira SSChasing Mays Points: 628 More actions · Answer 4

Do I need to have a sperate drive associated with each instance, or can all instances be on the same drive, same IP? (I have different drives associated with Log, Data and backup files).

Thanks everyone

bbdpres SSCommitted Points: 1876 More actions · Answer 5

You don't need separate drives, but for each group of instances that share a drive, they must belong to the same cluster group and have the disk resources as dependencies for the instance resources.

i.e. you have instances INST1 - INST6 - and INST1-INST3 use D:, E: and F: and INST4-INST6 use G:, H:, and I:

cluster group 1 would have the resources for INST1-INST3 and DISK_D, DISK_E and DISK_F (each instance dependent on the drives)

cluster group 2 would have the resources for INST4-INST6 and DISK_G, DISK_H and DISK_I (each instance dependent on the drives)

This would also allow you to split the groups across nodes.

The problem comes in when you mix/match because the disk resource is only available on a single node at a time...

Gé Brander SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4353 More actions · Answer 6

I would recommend to do so. You do not want an instance to be offline because another instance needs to be offline for maintenance. Why would you consider not to?