Hi,

Would it be safe to say that SQL server does not allow me to do load
balancing of a single database? We have an application that uses a single
database. Currently I have a setup of 2 decent servers (HP ML570). They are
setup with Windows 2003 server failover clustering. I wanted to find out
whether I can change the cluster to an active/active cluster and use the
same database for load balancing using both my servers a bit more
efficiently.

Thank you.

Clustering is a hardware fail over solution only. It does not in any way
shape or form do load balancing.

--
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP


"Dragon" <NoSpam_Baadil (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

Thank you Andrew for your reply.

Is there any other way to do SQL load balancing for a single database?


"Andrew J. Kelly" <sqlmvpnooospam (AT) shadhawk (DOT) com> wrote

Not easily unless the database is read only. There are some 3rd party tools
that claim to help some like http://www.xprime.com/ but I can't vouch for
them as of yet. I haven't actually seen one in action yet. I know it
sounds obvious enough but what is the reason for wanting to do load sharing?
Scaling up is a lot easier and usually cheaper than scaling out.

--
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP


"Dragon" <NoSpam_Baadil (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

Just to add to Andrew's note. The key in performance tuning is to first
determine what component is underperforming, then improve that component.
If you are memory bound, add more ram, disk too slow, move to from Raid 5
to Raid 10. TempDB I/O bound, move it to a separate drive, etc.

Some of the SQL Server performance tuning books can help scale-up the SQL
Server hardware subsystems long before you'll probably need to "scale out".

Chris Skorlinski
Microsoft SQL Server Support
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