January 16, 2009 at 2:51 pm
I have two 2008 64 bit boxes running SQL2005 with SP2 installed. It's in an active/active configuration with two instances, one on each physical. I'm installing SP3 tomorrow and want to confirm I'm doing this correctly.
Server1 running Instance1
Server2 running Instance2
I'm planning on running SP3 update with everything online for Server1/Instance1, then run it again for Server2/Instance2. How does this sound to you guys? Thanks.
January 16, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I haven't installed SP3 on an Active\Active cluster but I have on an Active\Passive cluster. Just needed to start the SP3 install on the active node, it prompted for credentials for the passive node, and started the install on the passive node. Once it's patched the passive node it patches the active node. I would imagine in an Active\Active cluster it would not matter which node you start the install on, it will also patch the other active node since SQL service packs and hotfixes are all cluster aware.
This is from the release notes for SP3:
Installing SQL Server 2005 SP3 on a Failover Cluster Instance
Note the following information before you install SP3 on a failover cluster instance:
Do not stop the cluster service before you run the SP3 Setup program, or while the installation program is running.
Do not end any running processes before you run the SP3 Setup program.
Do not take the SQL Server service offline before you run the SP3 Setup program. The SP3 Setup program will stop and start the SQL Server service.
Run the SP3 Setup program on the primary node of the failover cluster instance.
You must restart all failover cluster nodes after SP3 is finished installing.
Rolling upgrade is not supported for SP3.
January 16, 2009 at 7:36 pm
whats the last point
Rolling upgrade is not supported for SP3 means?could you give some more info on this
January 17, 2009 at 6:32 am
Since I have two instances, I would have to install it once for each instance. In this case of active/active, I would start the SP3 from the active nodes, one-by-one. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
January 17, 2009 at 8:54 am
Preston (1/17/2009)
Since I have two instances, I would have to install it once for each instance. In this case of active/active, I would start the SP3 from the active nodes, one-by-one. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
I did the above and it successfully applied SP3 to both physicals without any issues. Guess I could have had the two active nodes on one physical and get them both in one shot. Nevertheless, I'm just happy SP3 installed without any issues.
January 18, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Glad to hear your SP3 went well, just before i do my install,
I have three physical (ACTIVE, ACTIVE and PASSIVE).
Both ACTIVE fail to PASSIVE.
So did you just leave them all running and install the SP3 ....or did you stop all sql first.
Did you have to shutdown after applying it.
Cheers
January 20, 2009 at 7:16 am
TRACEY (1/18/2009)
Glad to hear your SP3 went well, just before i do my install,I have three physical (ACTIVE, ACTIVE and PASSIVE).
Both ACTIVE fail to PASSIVE.
So did you just leave them all running and install the SP3 ....or did you stop all sql first.
Did you have to shutdown after applying it.
Cheers
Yes, I left SQL running and did the update one by one. I first did Server1/Instance1, rebooted both physicals one by one by moving the active node to the other physical. It was suggested by the SP to reboot since some of the services have to be restarted. Once the virtuals are back on their "home" physicals, I logged on to Server2/Instance2 and performed the same update. This time, nothing had to be restarted so I did not have to reboot.
One gotcha, and I'm not sure why this is but it happened after the SP3 install, the instances from some reason switched from mixed mode auth back to Windows only auth. This caused issues with apps running SQL auth as it could not authenticate. Once I switched it back to mixed mode and restarted services, everything returned back to nomal. I'm still researching as to why this happened so you might want to look at that after the install.
March 3, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Can someone explain what is Rolling Upgrade? Thanks.
March 3, 2009 at 5:40 pm
A rolling upgrade is to patch the passive node in a cluster, fail over to the passive node, then patch the newly passive (formerly active node) to reduce downtime.
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