Comments on: Clustering MS SQL Server 2008 R2 on VMware Virtual Windows Server 2008 R2 – 1

By: Raymond

Raymond — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:07:09 +0000

Excellent article!

In order to prevent any two-node cluster from residing on the same vSphere host, anti-affinity rules should be set to prevent this. Enable Strict Enforcement of Affinity Rules in the advanced option for VMWare DRS… ForceAffinePowerOn=>enable strict enforcement of anti-affinity rules.

By: Mehmet Bora Teoman

Mehmet Bora Teoman — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:04:51 +0000

You are welcome :)

For enterprise edition, you can run (with a single license on a single physical machine) 4 virtual PLUS 1 physical Windows instance. If you want a detailed explanation, here is the link for licensing: http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/E/4/9E4CCEC9-222B-4563-8DCD-43F941ABA73F/Licensing_Microsoft_Server_Products_Virtual_Environments.docx

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 05:33:09 +0000

Thanks for the great information. I am unsure about the licensing needed for 2008 server Enterprise. Would only one 2008 server enterprise license be needed in a two VM server cluster or do I need a license for each VM?

Thanks

By: William Ring

William Ring — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:07:38 +0000

I just completed this configuration on VM’s with a private switch to the SAN. I wanted to relay a sticking point i encounted in the virtual disks for the cluster. the SCSI driver has to be LSI Logic SAS type for the windows 2008 servers to be able to use the drives between themselves (the default LSI Logic Parallel will not work). I finally found you can turn off the virtual client server, do a right click upgrade hardware, then you can assign the SCSI Controller a LSI Logic SAS type. a complication that came of this, forced my nic’s to be DHCP again, and i had to go back and correct that (and binding order). Enjoy

By: Mohammed Khalid

Mohammed Khalid — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:12:30 +0000

Hi Mehmet,

Thanks for the links,
Host ID’s for the LUN’s were not same on 2 hosts.
Its Working fine now, after reassigning the LUN’s

Thanks

By: Mehmet Bora Teoman

Mehmet Bora Teoman — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:45:30 +0000

Hi Mohammed

I am not sure why you got that error but following links may help. Thanks for your interest to our site.

http://networkadminkb.com/kb/Knowledge%20Base/VMWare/How%20to%20fix%20Virtual%20Hard%20disk%20is%20a%20mapped%20direct-access%20LUN%20that%20is%20not%20accessible.aspx

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1320803

http://www.virtualization.net/1793-mapped-direct-access-lun-that-is-not-accessible-error/

By: Mohammed Khalid

Mohammed Khalid — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 07:57:13 +0000

Hello,

After Adding Disk in second server from existing disk, i am getting following error,
” virtual disk ‘Disk disk2′ is mapped direct-access lun that is not accessible “.

Any Idea??

Thanks.

Mohammed Khalid

By: Mehmet Bora Teoman

Mehmet Bora Teoman — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:42:34 +0000

Hello

Actually I haven’t done an SQL upgrade for Sharepoint farm until today. But I think it can be possible but painful :(
There is an article about moving databases to another SQL server in http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc512725%28office.12%29.aspx link. I think after carefully building your new virtualized SQL cluster, you can transfer the databases with the aid of this article.

I wish you luck in this procedure :)

By: jcnet

jcnet — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 16:03:21 +0000

We currently have a SQL 2005 Cluster using two physical blades. We are looking to both go Virtual and upgrade them to Windows 2008 R2 and SQL 2008. Would it be advisable to try and do that in place? This cluster is hosting a SharePoint 2007 farm and we really don’t want to have to reconfigure it as part of upgrading. I think Virtualizing should be transparent and was hoping the SQL upgrade step is just that. Thanks.

By: Mehmet Bora Teoman

Mehmet Bora Teoman — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 06:59:33 +0000

Hi Ernie

Thanks for your compliment first of all :)
Actually, RDM drives can be on the same controller. The way that we did in the article is only the recommendation of Vmware (each RDM drive on its own controller). But as I said, it is not a must.

By: Ernie

Ernie — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 20:38:45 +0000

Great document! Question around creating RDM drives on the first node. You mention that each new drive needs to be on its own controller, but there appears to be a limitation of 3 additional SCSI controllers on the VM. Does each drive need to be on it’s own controller, or is it just that the RDM drives can’t be on the same controller of the C:\Drive (non RDM) of the VM? I’m asking this because we’d like to add 6 RDM drives.

By: M. Bora Teoman

M. Bora Teoman — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 07:01:05 +0000

Hi Cynthia
Actually public one is the main adapter for the cluster (I mean the main data is running through this interface). Private adapter is only for heartbeat (for each server to understand whether the other one is up or not). When Private one is the first in binding order, there could be some instabilities. Therefore I don’t recommend (neither Microsoft) you to put the Private adapter to the first place in binding order.

The answer to your second question is; I don’t think the changing of order after clustering will affect the cluster. It will be fine.

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:59:03 +0000

I have a question about the binding order of the network adapters. Why does public have to be first in the binding order? And if the cluster was built with private first in the binding order, can the binding order be changed without messing up the cluster?