To cluster or not to cluster SQL 2008?

[cajuntank]

I already have a SQL active/pasive cluster running 2008 for both OS and SQL. I am going to implement a Hyper-V cluster for several of my applications and was wondering about SQL. I have read that SQL high availability is not supported under Hyper-V, so I'm wondering which way to go. My SQL will house databases for Microsoft OCS, my antivirus software, and I had planned on creating another SQL instance for Sharepoint (following best practices) or I could just load another VM of SQL.

So would I have one SQL server under the Hyper-V cluster and get my redundancy that way, or have 2 SQL servers in a high availability cluster like I have now? Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[cajuntank]

Anyone?

 

[mrdenny]

SQL Server 2008 R2 is supported in a cluster under Hyper-V.

SQL Server 2008 (2005 and 2000) will work just fine in a cluster under Hyper-V.

Denny
MVP
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / SQL 2005 BI / SQL 2008 DBA / SQL 2008 DBD / SQL 2008 BI / MWSS 3.0: Configuration / MOSS 2007: Configuration)
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[gbraden]

How about VMware? Of course we are not going to use Hyper-V, but instead, create/colapse several servers on our 2008 server using VWware. Does anyone know of any gotchas?


Glen Braden

 

[mrdenny]

No there's no problems under VMware.

Denny
MVP
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / SQL 2005 BI / SQL 2008 DBA / SQL 2008 DBD / SQL 2008 BI / MWSS 3.0: Configuration / MOSS 2007: Configuration)
MCITP (SQL 2005 DBA / SQL 2008 DBA / SQL 2005 DBD / SQL 2008 DBD / SQL 2005 BI / SQL 2008 BI)

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[cajuntank]

So going back to my original question...thoughts about having a SQL cluster via high availability or just having a single SQL and getting my high availability via Hyper-V cluster?

 

[mrdenny]

It depends on your needs. If you need the service to be back online as fast as possible in the event of a physical hardware failure then cluster the guests under Hyper-V. If you can afford to wait for the cluster to restart the guest on another node then just a single machine with SQL on it will be fine.

Denny
MVP
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / SQL 2005 BI / SQL 2008 DBA / SQL 2008 DBD / SQL 2008 BI / MWSS 3.0: Configuration / MOSS 2007: Configuration)
MCITP (SQL 2005 DBA / SQL 2008 DBA / SQL 2005 DBD / SQL 2008 DBD / SQL 2005 BI / SQL 2008 BI)

My Blog