Move Farm to SQL

[djacobus]

I have a small farm of 2 servers (soon to be 3) and a user base of 160 clients. The data store is on server #1 and is not on a SQL database. Should or can I move this to my SQL database?

Whats involved without reloading the farm?

 

[ascotta]

Well yes you can move the server to SQL see dsmaint command, and docs on Citrix on "How to move Data Store"

Should you, well once you are above 1 server then it does give you a vulnerability having an access data store. Lose the Data store server you are stuffed.

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Cheers
Scott

 

[djacobus]

So youre saying its more vulnerable to leave it the way it is or move it?

 

[ascotta]

Here is my advice.

If you have SQL then use it. If you don't then access will work fine.

If I was you I would move it. Then either server can go down without any side effects.

[blue]Arguably the best cat skinner around ! [/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[djacobus]

Thats exaclty what I was thinking.

Thanks for your help!

 

[MikeBatters]

DJ - If the farm grows you will need to move the datastore anyway becuase it does give some performance advatages so i too would do it now.

 

[djacobus]

Great! Thanks for the help.

 

[MatthewJones]

Doesn't SQL end up being the Single point of failure at that point. Here's my delemma.

If SQL is replicated can Citix be configured to pick from a primary or backup SQL server?

I need to expand my farm to a 2nd box and SQL is obviously the answer but my boss had concerns of SQL being the single point of failure in the long run. Yes, we can replicate SQL but can Citrix dynamically recover and/or how easy is it to repoint the database to the back up server?

 

[ascotta]

If you replicate, then you just change the DSN setup on your citrix servers.

[blue]Arguably the best cat skinner around ! [/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[MikeBatters]

Matthew,

Even though SQL Server is potentially a single point of failure in this configuration there are two points to consider:

SQL Server based farms always seem to perform better and you do not have the DB overhead on one of the servers.

Even if you do completely loose the SQL Server you have 72 hours to put it back on another box, restore CitrixDB and change the DSNs before anything significant stops working (like connectivity). In the mean time you will loose the CMC but we have been through this excerise and you can build any old piece of kit and put SQL server on it in half a day.

As for how easy is it to change the DSN - Its a 2 minute per box job.

Does that help the dilema?