InfoScale™ 9.0 Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions Microsoft Clustering Solutions Guide for Microsoft SQL Server - Windows

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (9.0)
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

Creating dynamic volumes for high availability clusters

Use this procedure for creating volumes for a disk group in a high availability cluster. For volumes in a campus cluster, use the following procedure instead:

See Creating dynamic volumes for campus clusters.

The following topic provides additional guidelines for a DR configuration:

Note:

When assigning drive letters to volumes, ensure that the drive letters are available on all nodes.

To create dynamic volumes

  1. Launch Veritas Enterprise Administrator from the Apps menu on the Start screen.

    Select a profile if prompted.

  2. Click Connect to a Host or Domain.
  3. In the Connect dialog box select the host name from the pull-down menu and click Connect. To connect to the local system, select localhost. Provide the user name, password, and domain if prompted.
  4. To start the New Volume wizard, expand the tree view under the host node to display all the disk groups. Right click a disk group and select New Volume from the context menu.

    You can right-click the disk group you have just created, for example INST1_DG.

  5. At the New Volume wizard opening screen, click Next.
  6. Select the disks for the volume as follows:
    • Make sure the appropriate disk group name appears in the Group name drop-down list.

      For example, INST1_DG.

    • For Site Preference, leave the setting as Siteless (the default).

    • Automatic disk selection is the default setting. To manually select the disks, click Manually select disks and use the Add and Remove buttons to move the appropriate disks to the Selected disks list. Manual selection of disks is recommended.

    • You may also check Disable Track Alignment to disable track alignment for the volume. Disabling Track Alignment means that the volume does not store blocks of data in alignment with the boundaries of the physical track of the disk.

    • Click Next.

  7. Specify the volume attributes as follows:
    • Enter a volume name.

      Note:

      A volume name is limited to 18 ASCII characters. It cannot contain spaces, slash mark (/), backslash (\), exclamation point (!), angle brackets (< >), or equal sign (=). Also, a period cannot be the first character in the name.

    • Provide a size for the volume. If you click the Max Size button, a size appears in the Size box that represents the maximum possible volume size for that layout in the dynamic disk group.

    • Select a layout type.

    • If you are creating a striped volume, the Columns and Stripe unit size boxes need to have entries. Defaults are provided.

    • To select mirrored striped, click both the Mirrored checkbox and the Striped radio button.

    • In the Mirror Info area, select the appropriate mirroring options.

    • Verify that Enable logging is not selected.

    • Click Next.

  8. Assign a drive letter or mount point to the volume. You must use the same drive letter or mount point on all systems in the cluster. Make sure to verify the availability of the drive letter before assigning it.
    • To assign a drive letter, select Assign a Drive Letter, and choose a drive letter.

    • To mount the volume as a folder, select Mount as an empty NTFS folder, and click Browse to locate an empty folder on the shared disk.

    • If creating a Replicator Log volume for Volume Replicator, select Do not assign a drive letter.

  9. Click Next.
  10. Create an NTFS file system as follows.
    • Make sure the Format this volume checkbox is checked and click NTFS.

    • For a Volume Replicator configuration, for the Replicator Log volume only, clear the Format this volume check box.

    • Select an allocation size or accept the default.

    • The file system label is optional. SFW makes the volume name the file system label.

    • Select Perform a quick format if you want to save time.

    • Select Enable file and folder compression to save disk space. Note that compression consumes system resources and performs encryption and decryption, which may result in reduced system performance.

      Note:

      If you plan to use this volume to install SQL Server, do not select the Enable file and folder compression checkbox. The SQL Server installation cannot copy files on a compressed or encrypted folder.

    • Click Next.

  11. Click Finish to create the new volume.
  12. Repeat these steps to create additional volumes.

    Create the cluster disk group and volumes on the first node of the cluster only.