Hi everyone,

I have a Design Question about clustering SQL. I know clustering is an expensive solution but I was given a project to provide high availablity for Sharepoint Portal Server 2003. The environment involves over 1400 users and I was given two HP BL20p servers to work with. The project will need to be finished and in production in two month and their SAN solution will not have iSCSI available after 3 months. I have researched and can't seem to come up with a reliable solution to cluster two servers with SQL, plus my intent is to also cluster SPS2003 as well since the design for easy growth, the SQLs will stay the same. It would probably be easy to add two web servers after the budget allows for such addition. I would appreciate any comments in this matter.

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Regards,

David V. Dellanno - MCSE, MCP+I, MCP
MSDEMO Consultants
Williams Place
2564 Bridgewood Lane
Snellville, Georgia 30078 USA
(770) 736-8794 (Office)
msdemo.net

BL20p aren't really ideal for building either a W2K or W2K3 2-node SQL Server Cluster. Firstly, you'll need 2x Fibre Host Bus Adapter in each blade server to connect to your SAN (for dual path failover - assuming you are using Secure Path 4.0c). Expansion on BL20p's is rather limited comparied to other HP low end servers (eg DL360G3 or DL380G3). Because you'll have no local CD/DVD this may also present problems. Take a look at the Windows Catalog (was called HCL) on the MS website and look for certified cluster configurations. Remember that you cannot construct a [hardware] configuration from different entries on the clustering Windows Catalog and still get support from the vendors (HP + MS). You need to select ONE total clustering solution from the list.

Hi Stephen,

Thank you very much for your input. I have been hitting the same
conclusion and have been trying to get an alternate inexpensive clustering
solution to keep a high availabitly but it keeps coming back. The more
availabitity the more it will cost.

It will be using W2K3 Enterprise Edition with SQL 2000 EE and at this
point we don't have iSCSI adapters , for the blades that will be available
in 3 months, that should be in the HCL, which it is too late for the project
to be completed at.

Thanks for the suggestion of 2x adapters per blade for the dual path
failover but I think that will be an overkill at this stage. I will look at
the HCL site, haven't yet. Thanks again!






"Stephen Strong" <anonymous (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

blade server to connect to your SAN (for dual path failover - assuming you
are using Secure Path 4.0c). Expansion on BL20p's is rather limited
comparied to other HP low end servers (eg DL360G3 or DL380G3). Because
you'll have no local CD/DVD this may also present problems. Take a look at
the Windows Catalog (was called HCL) on the MS website and look for
certified cluster configurations. Remember that you cannot construct a
[hardware] configuration from different entries on the clustering Windows
Catalog and still get support from the vendors (HP + MS). You need to
select ONE total clustering solution from the list.