Active/Passive Production with Test Instance

I am trying to setup a SQL cluster with the an
active/passive cluster for production. On the passive
node, I have been told to create a separate disk and
install a developers edition of SQL to use as a test
environment. The developers edition will be a named
instance of SQL to help isolate it from production should
a failover occur.
Does anyone else out there have this type of
configuration in their environment? Have you had any
problems or does it work fine? My gut is not real
comfortable with this, even though we can make it work in
a test lab. I would appreciate any other feed back to
make me feel better, or help me build the case to do
otherwise.
Thanks
Dan,
Reading your description, it appears that you want a production clustered SQL Server instance on one node (that you call active) and another test clustered SQL Server instance on second node (that you called
passive). This will work but then it is not really active/passive, it will be active/active configruation. Basically you are planning to install two clustered SQL Server instances on a two node cluster and each instance
running on seperate nodes. There is no issue in doing this except that you will need make sure that at any time the resources on a single node is enough for both the SQL Server instances.
SQL Server 2000 Failover Clustering is a High Availablity solution. Hence, one would not want to have production and test instances on the same cluster. I would not recommend having prod and test on same cluster
and I have not seen this. I have seen many clusters with two instances of SQL (infact 16 instances are supported) on the same cluster but all the instances are for production and they are configured such that even if
one node fails the other node can run all the instances without any issues.
HTH,
Best Regards,
Uttam Parui
Microsoft Corporation
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|||
>--Original Message--
>Dan,
>Reading your description, it appears that you want a
production clustered SQL Server instance on one node
(that you call active) and another test clustered SQL
Server instance on second node (that you called
>passive).
Actually, the test instance of SQL would not be
clustered, but exist solely on the second box. We do not
plan any failover for the test instance.
This will work but then it is not really active/passive,
it will be active/active configruation. Basically you are
planning to install two clustered SQL Server instances on
a two node cluster and each instance
>running on seperate nodes. There is no issue in doing
this except that you will need make sure that at any time
the resources on a single node is enough for both the SQL
Server instances.
>SQL Server 2000 Failover Clustering is a High
Availablity solution. Hence, one would not want to have
production and test instances on the same cluster. I
would not recommend having prod and test on same cluster
>and I have not seen this. I have seen many clusters with
two instances of SQL (infact 16 instances are supported)
on the same cluster but all the instances are for
production and they are configured such that even if
>one node fails the other node can run all the instances
without any issues.
>HTH,
>Best Regards,
>Uttam Parui
>Microsoft Corporation
>This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
confers no rights.
>Are you secure? For information about the Strategic
Technology Protection Program and to order your FREE
Security Tool Kit, please visit
http://www.microsoft.com/security.
>Microsoft highly recommends that users with Internet
access update their Microsoft software to better protect
against viruses and security vulnerabilities. The easiest
way to do this is to visit the following websites:
>http://www.microsoft.com/protect
>http://www.microsoft.com/security/guidance/default.mspx
>
>.
>
|||Even if the second instance of SQL Server is standalone and not clustered, I would not recommend installing it on a production cluster. The passive node is like
Sometimes there is the notion especially in a single-instance SQL Serve cluster (active/passove) that the unused node (passive node) is being wasted. However, the passive node serve as an insurance policy in
the event of a failure. If you start utilizing the wasted node for something else, what will happen in a failover? Will SQL Server have enough resources to allocate to it?
I will give an example. Few yrs ago, one of my customers who had a SQL Server 7.0 active/passive production cluster thought that the passive node was being wasted and they installed a TEST SQL Server 2000
standalone instance on the passive node. What they didn't realize is that MDAC 2.6 got installed with SQL 2K and MDAC 2.6 can break SQL 7.0 cluster. So, unknowingly they affected their Highly Available
solution.Thats the reason, you don't want to do any test/dev stuff on your prod cluster. Ideally, you should have an identical dev/test cluster where you do all your development and testing and after getting successful
results, do that on the prodcution cluster.
HTH,
Best Regards,
Uttam Parui
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Are you secure? For information about the Strategic Technology Protection Program and to order your FREE Security Tool Kit, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/security.
Microsoft highly recommends that users with Internet access update their Microsoft software to better protect against viruses and security vulnerabilities. The easiest way to do this is to visit the following websites:
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
http://www.microsoft.com/security/guidance/default.mspx