Pythian Group

In Part 1 of this series, we prepared our Windows Server 2008 servers to be a part of a cluster. In this part, we will look at adding the iSCSI disks to the servers. The series of steps outlined below should be done on both nodes.

Before we go any further, I must mention that you should have at least two network cards configured on both of the servers, where one NIC is connected to the local area network, and the other to the other server and is private. This second NIC will be considered your heartbeat, where communication between nodes will travel. This is basic when configuring any cluster nodes. How these cards are configured will come into the picture as we go along in the process.

1. Add the iSCSI Targets as disks on the server nodes

Windows Server 2008 comes with iSCSI Initiator software that enables connection of a Windows host to an external iSCSI storage array using network adapters. This differs from previous versions of Microsoft Windows where you need to download and install this software prior to connecting to an iSCSI storage. You can launch the tool from Administrative Tools and select iSCSI Initiator.

To connect to the iSCSI target: Read the rest of this entry . . .

This happens to be my very first blog post with Pythian, and to kick this thing off, I would like to talk about building a Windows Server 2008 cluster.

As DBAs, we cannot separate ourselves from the grueling task of having to deal with the underlying operating system, especially as new versions come out. Running SQL Server also means understanding the operating system on which it runs. And since Windows Server 2008 has been released for almost a year now, a lot of customers are upgrading from Windows Server 2003 to this new version.

Installing SQL Server on a stand-alone server or member server in the domain is pretty straightforward. Dealing with clustering is a totally different story. The goal of this series of posts is to be able to help DBAs who may be charged with installing SQL Server on a Windows Server 2008 cluster.

The best approach is to always have an environment on which to run these tests. In my case, I run VMware Workstation 6.5 on my Windows XP laptop. Here are the steps that you need to take.

Read the rest of this entry . . .