Database Reference
In-Depth Information
This completes the required steps to install and configure an SQL Server 2008 R2 failover
cluster using the setup interface. For this recipe, we installed a three-node cluster having two
active nodes at any time to enable a mission-critical high-availability provision.
How it works...
The SQL Server failover cluster installation involves steps to create and configure a single-
node SQL Server instance. When the node is configured, we have a fully functional failover
cluster instance without a high-availability feature, because the installation is configured on
only one node in the failover cluster environment.
Additional nodes can be added to the existing SQL Server failover cluster using the Setup
feature that uses the Add Node functionality. The setup will prepare a node, preferably on the
node that owns the shared disk, which has the failover cluster using the defined feature.
Recovering and troubleshooting Failover
Cluster Failure
The installation of failover clustering is not an error-resistant process. Maintaining the cluster
instances is another important task to keep up. The failure may occur during the failover
process, when adding a node to an existing cluster farm, or due to a hardware failure. Viewing
the cluster-wide events requires supportive tools and methods to recover a failover clustering
instance failure and troubleshoot any problems that are repetitive in the clustering nodes. A
cluster on an expensive hardware system is of no value, if the support infrastructure is not
fault tolerant, such as power redundancy or network redundancy.
Once the failover cluster nodes are installed, the first step is to test the failover and failback
methods to ensure that the nodes are configured properly to provide the high-availability
solution. In this recipe, we will go through the process of recovering and troubleshooting a
failover clustering failure with a scenario, which is classified as administering an SQL Server
Failover Cluster.
Getting ready
To test the failover clustering, ensure that the cluster services are up and running by referring
to the SQL Server Configuration Manager program.
Next, perform health checks against the SQL Server failover cluster instance; the default tests
are
LooksAlive
test and
IsAlive
test.
To simulate the continuity of SQL server services, perform the following two actions:
1.
Register the new Virtual SQL Server within SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to
manage the instance as similar to other SQL Server instances.
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