Storage Foundation and High Availability 8.0.2 Solutions Microsoft Clustering Solutions Guide for Microsoft SQL Server - Windows

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (8.0.2)
Platform: Windows
  1. Introducing SFW solutions for a Microsoft cluster
    1.  
      About Microsoft clustering solutions with SFW
    2.  
      Advantages of using SFW in a Microsoft cluster
    3.  
      About high availability clusters
    4.  
      About campus clusters
    5.  
      About disaster recovery clusters
  2. Planning for deploying SQL Server with SFW in a Microsoft cluster
    1.  
      InfoScale requirements for Microsoft clustering solutions
    2. Planning your SQL Server high availability configuration
      1.  
        Sample high availability configuration for SQL Server with SFW
      2.  
        Configuring the quorum device for high availability
    3. Planning your campus cluster configuration
      1.  
        Microsoft campus cluster failure scenarios
      2. Microsoft cluster quorum and quorum arbitration
        1.  
          Quorum
        2.  
          Cluster ownership of the quorum resource
        3.  
          The vxclus utility
    4. Planning your disaster recovery configuration
      1.  
        Sample disaster recovery configuration for SQL Server with SFW and Volume Replicator
  3. Workflows for deploying SQL Server with SFW in a Microsoft cluster
    1.  
      Workflow for a high availability (HA) configuration
    2. Workflow for a campus cluster configuration
      1.  
        Campus cluster: Connecting the two nodes
    3.  
      Workflow for a disaster recovery configuration
    4.  
      Using the Solutions Configuration Center workflow
    5.  
      Configuring the storage hardware and network
  4. Configuring SFW storage
    1.  
      Tasks for configuring InfoScale Storage
    2. Planning for SFW cluster disk groups and volumes
      1.  
        Sample SQL Server high-availability cluster storage configuration
      2.  
        Sample campus cluster storage configuration
      3.  
        Sample SQL Server disaster recovery storage configuration
    3.  
      Considerations when creating disk groups and volumes for a campus cluster
    4.  
      Considerations when creating volumes for a DR configuration using Volume Replicator replication
    5.  
      Viewing the available disk storage
    6.  
      Creating dynamic cluster disk groups
    7.  
      Adding disks to campus cluster sites
    8.  
      Creating dynamic volumes for high availability clusters
    9.  
      Creating dynamic volumes for campus clusters
  5. Implementing a dynamic mirrored quorum resource
    1.  
      Tasks for implementing a dynamic mirrored quorum resource
    2.  
      Creating a dynamic cluster disk group and a mirrored volume for the quorum resource
    3.  
      Adding a Volume Manager Disk Group resource for the quorum
    4.  
      Changing the quorum resource to a dynamic mirrored quorum resource
  6. Installing SQL Server and configuring resources
    1.  
      Tasks for installing and configuring SQL Server
    2.  
      Creating the resource group for the SQL Server instance
    3.  
      Prerequisites for installing SQL Server
    4.  
      Installing SQL Server in an InfoScale Storage environment
    5.  
      Dependency graph for SQL Server
    6.  
      Verifying the SQL Server group in the Microsoft cluster
  7. Configuring disaster recovery
    1.  
      Tasks for configuring the secondary site for disaster recovery for SQL Server
    2.  
      Verifying the primary site configuration
    3.  
      Creating a parallel environment for SQL Server on the secondary site
    4.  
      Volume Replicator components overview
    5.  
      Setting up security for Volume Replicator
    6.  
      Creating resources for Volume Replicator
    7. Configuring Volume Replicator: Setting up an RDS
      1.  
        Prerequisites for setting up the RDS
      2.  
        Creating a Replicated Data Set (RDS)
    8.  
      Creating the RVG resource
    9.  
      Setting the SQL server resource dependency on the RVG resource
    10. Normal Volume Replicator operations and recovery procedures
      1.  
        Monitoring the status of the replication
      2.  
        Performing planned migration
      3. Replication recovery procedures
        1.  
          Bringing up the application on the secondary host
        2.  
          Restoring the primary host
  8. Appendix A. Configure InfoScale Storage in an existing Microsoft Failover Cluster
    1.  
      Configuring InfoScale Storage in an existing Microsoft Failover Cluster

Planning for SFW cluster disk groups and volumes

A dynamic cluster disk group is a collection of one or more disks that behave as a single storage repository and which can potentially be accessed by different computers. Within each disk group, you can have dynamic volumes with different layouts.

Note:

You create a cluster disk group and volumes on only one node of a cluster. The volumes can be accessed by other nodes in a high-availability cluster by first deporting the cluster disk group from the current node and then importing it on the desired node. In a campus cluster, the volumes are mirrored across the storage arrays.

Before creating a disk group, consider the following:

  • The type of volume configurations that are required.

  • The number of LUNs required for the disk group.

  • The implications of backup and restore operations on the disk group setup.

  • The size of databases and logs which depend on the traffic load.

  • The number of disk groups and volumes that are needed for the SQL Server instance. Typically an SFW disk group corresponds to an the SQL Server instance, with a separate volume for each database and for the transaction log.

  • For campus clusters, consider the following:

    • The disk groups and number of disks on each site

      For campus clusters, each disk group must contain an equal number of disks on each site.

    • Each volume should be a mirrored volume with one plex of the volume on Site A's storage array and the other plex of the volume on Site B's storage array.

  • In a Microsoft cluster, plan to include a disk group for the mirrored quorum resource. If possible, use small disks. Microsoft recommends 500 MB for the quorum disk. The number of disks recommended are as follows:

    • In a high-availability configuration, Veritas recommends using at least 3 disks for the mirrored quorum resource.

    • In a campus cluster configuration, because each site must contain an equal number of disks, Veritas recommends a 4-way mirrored quorum, 2 mirrors on each site.

The following topics provide additional guidelines for specific configurations: