hardware upgrade of active/active cluster

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davidawest@gmail.com - 23 Nov 2005 05:58 GMT

I'm planning a hardware upgrade of our active/active dual node Windows
2000 sql cluster. Hostnames and IP addresses will remain unchanged.
Here's a high level overview of my plan..

1. move all cluster groups/resources to node 2
2. shutdown sql services on node 1
3. uninstall MSCS on node 1
4. evict node 1 from cluster using cluster administrator on node 2
5. power down node 1
6. reset node 1 account in domain
7. add new node 1 to domain
8. install MSCS on new node 1
9. install sql server on new node 1
10. install sql sp2 on new node 1
11. add new node 1 to existing cluster
12. verify that all resources can move to new node 1 correctly

** repeat for node 2

I know this has been discussed several times before in this newsgroup,
but there's a few extra steps in there that I believe have not been
addressed in the past. Does the above look accurate and also is it
feasible to roll back to a ghost image and backup of the quarum in the
event of a problem with either server?

Thanks in advance,

David

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Geoff N. Hiten - 23 Nov 2005 14:04 GMT

Step 1.5 Uninstall SQL from Node 1. If you do not do this step, you cannot
do step 9. Uninstalling SQL also tells the existing cluster not to look for
that node any longer as a valid SQL host node. You can do it as step 8.5,
but you will have to wait on some timeouts since the node is no onger there.

I haven't tried a ghost of the quorum as a restore technique, but I suspect
that given the SQL configuration changes, it wouldn't work.

Since you are reusing node names, make sure you have removed all traces of
the nodes from Active Directory and allowed it to globally synch before
trying to add the machines back in.

IMHO, I would take the opportunity to upgrade to Windows 2003 as a host OS
during the upgrade. In that case, you would need to be on at least SP3a
before starting the cluster upgrade.

Signature

Geoff N. Hiten
Senior Database Administrator
Microsoft SQL Server MVP

> I'm planning a hardware upgrade of our active/active dual node Windows
> 2000 sql cluster. Hostnames and IP addresses will remain unchanged.
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
>
> David

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