December 18, 2015 at 8:45 am
Anyone has hands on experience setting up geoclustering in 2012? Are there any gotcha's i should be worried about?
December 22, 2015 at 3:24 pm
No, but I have looked into it. Why not look at always on AG? I just don't like having to add third party stuff into the environment having to run the vendor storage extensions etc. Always gives MS an easy out when troubleshooting.
December 29, 2015 at 8:24 am
curious_sqldba (12/18/2015)
Anyone has hands on experience setting up geoclustering in 2012? Are there any gotcha's i should be worried about?
What exactly are you planning to deploy on a geographical scale.
A clustered instance of sql server?
An availability group?
A clustered instance of sql server and an availability group?
First thing to identify is whether you require shared storage or not
PretendDBA (12/22/2015)
Why not look at always on AG?
Which would still require a geographically dispersed WSFC anyway
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December 29, 2015 at 9:06 am
OK here is my situation, should have explained this before. We create and drop about 10 databases on avg daily basis ( don't ask me why we do this). Now we could create custom scripts/job that can add/remove databases from availability group, we also have to have a process to have logins/jobs in sync. And the BIGGEST bummer with AAG is licensing, i will have to license both the nodes.
Lets look at my solution, we have dark fiber across two data centers. If i set up Active/Passive geo cluster across these two i will only have to license one server, also i don't need to baby sit a process to make sure my databases are added/removed in AAG and will also act as true HA/DR solution. We will be using async SAN replication, i am big fan of SAN replication because i don't need to pay big bucks for SQL enterprise edition.
That being said, any hands on experience with geo clustering? Any gotcha's?
December 31, 2015 at 3:29 am
curious_sqldba (12/29/2015)
i am big fan of SAN replication because i don't need to pay big bucks for SQL enterprise edition.
so am I, but this can usually come with much higher costs and maintenance requirements
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"Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉
December 31, 2015 at 8:54 am
But given my situation do you think Geo clustering is better than AAG?
January 4, 2016 at 5:40 am
a multi site alwayson availability group sits on top of a multi site (or geographically dispersed) cluster, so your question is not clear
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"Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉
January 4, 2016 at 9:35 am
I don't need AAG. Just need to set up geo-clustering, i can use SAN replication to get the data across data centers. My original question was, has any one experience any major issues while setting up geo-clustering. I can't imagine why would someone even go AAG over geo-clustering and pay those extra sql licenses on a server which you would barely use. Why not just use SAN replication?
January 5, 2016 at 12:57 am
Hi,
First thing I can think of from your design is the async of SAN replication, where if you have a failure, you might have issue with the DB when it failover (data lost, DB corruption). With AAG, you will still have data lost, but wont be corruption.
This will go back to the RPO and RTO question i assume, if your dark fiber is fast enough, you might use sync SAN replication and it makes everything easier. As that is what I'm using at the moment 🙂
Hope this helps.
January 5, 2016 at 7:52 am
SQL DBA in HK (1/5/2016)
Hi,First thing I can think of from your design is the async of SAN replication, where if you have a failure, you might have issue with the DB when it failover (data lost, DB corruption). With AAG, you will still have data lost, but wont be corruption.
This will go back to the RPO and RTO question i assume, if your dark fiber is fast enough, you might use sync SAN replication and it makes everything easier. As that is what I'm using at the moment 🙂
Hope this helps.
Are u using geo-clustering? Is that on 2012?
January 5, 2016 at 8:05 pm
At the moment yes, with SAN replication. I have different version of SQL going, not just SQL 2012. But I am using sync SAN replication, meaning it does allow me to failover anytime to the other node.
January 6, 2016 at 8:36 am
SQL DBA in HK (1/5/2016)
At the moment yes, with SAN replication. I have different version of SQL going, not just SQL 2012. But I am using sync SAN replication, meaning it does allow me to failover anytime to the other node.
Wow thats's awesome, you are probably the only person i have met who has actually implemented geo-clustering :). I have implemented 2 node ap/ clustering many times from scratch, any gotcha's/ things to look out for geo-clustering. How difficult or different is it in implementation from regular clustering? Does dark fiber gives good through put and low latencies?
January 7, 2016 at 7:54 pm
I'm sure I'm not the only one here who got geo-clustering going 🙂
The only problem I have with geo-cluster is that you might not be able to get all necessary information from Windows, meaning some info you might need to get from the storage side (which might means from storage admin in many cases). But once you get that going, everything is pretty simple with just one additional things compare to the standard cluster.
As for throughput, it will be depends on the bandwidth you have on the dark fiber, you should be able to get the response time from the storage vendor on that given paired LUN, and see if that can fulfill your workload.
January 8, 2016 at 7:13 am
a geographically dispersed cluster is one whose nodes are on separate physical geographical regions, it has nothing to do with the storage.
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