Hi,
I completely understand that SQL-Clustering is failover technology and not a
load
balancing technology.

1. What I'm wondering is when you go for Active/Active mode, then whether
both the nodes communicates with the single instance of shared device or only
1 node
communicates with it?

2. If only 1 node communicates then what is the advantage of Active/Active
configuration over Active/Passive configuration?

3. Also I guess Active/Active configuration requires 2 licenses of SQL-2000.
Is that
true?

4. I know that we can run 16 instances of SQL-2000 on a cluster. Now, I
understand that - logically, each instance data would be different than other
thats why it is a seperate instance. So how does the client application knows
which instance data to use? How does the application takes care of providing
latest data always?

Thanks in advance
Pankaj A. Chitriv

Answers inline

--
Geoff N. Hiten
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Senior Database Administrator
Careerbuilder.com

I support the Professional Association for SQL Server
www.sqlpass.org

"Pankaj" <pankajchitriv (AT) rediffmail (DOT) com(donotspam)> wrote

connected to the shared storage system, but only one node actually owns and
modifies the on-disk information
instance with a different set of physical shared disks.

all look like different SQL servers.

Thanks Geoff again (I remember you)

1. What I understand by "multi-instance" is the different Alias created
using the "Client Network Utility". Is that true? or Instance means- I'll
have to install SQL server and give different service name during
installation?

2. Although each instance has its own Network name and IP address, all of
them points to the same sql database on the shared device. Correct?

Regards,
Pankaj



"Geoff N. Hiten" wrote:

More Comments Inline.

BTW, this is my last answer for about a week. Vacation time.

--
Geoff N. Hiten
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Senior Database Administrator
Careerbuilder.com

I support the Professional Association for SQL Server
www.sqlpass.org

"Pankaj" <pankajchitriv (AT) rediffmail (DOT) com(donotspam)> wrote

can use the Server Network Utility to assign non-standard port addresses if
you wish.

The physical device is "shared" in that it is physically accessable from all
host nodes. It is "shared nothing" in that only a single host actually
controls each LUN at any time. SAN storage devices present logical slices
of their storage systems (LUNS) to their connected hosts. The cluster
service arbitrates ownership so a host owns the storage resources associated
with a specific instance currently running on that host. There is NO
sharing of data storage between instances.