Is it really needed to STOP SQL Service before reboot the server?

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Carlos Felipe França da Fonseca - 22 Jul 2008 21:58 GMT

Is it really needed to STOP SQL Service before reboot the server?

Based on the the value in the registry key
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WaitToKillServiceTimeout, the server
can kill the process if it takes too long to stop. I think it's not a good,
right?

Thx,

Felipe

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Linchi Shea - 22 Jul 2008 23:19 GMT

No, you don't need to stop SQL service before rebooting a server. SQL Server
is built to handle a server crash. A reboot is actually much cleaner than a
real crash.

But i'm still seeing people religiously rebooting their Windows servers once
every week to starve away any potential instability. If that makes people
feel better, I guess that's what they need to do.

Linchi

> Is it really needed to STOP SQL Service before reboot the server?
>
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
> Felipe

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Uri Dimant - 23 Jul 2008 06:27 GMT

Linchi
I have seen many times when people rebooted a server without stopping SQL
Server and the databases come up in suspected mode.
I used to stop SQL Server services before rebooting the server

> No, you don't need to stop SQL service before rebooting a server. SQL
> Server
[quoted text clipped - 23 lines]
>>
>> Felipe

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vinu - 23 Jul 2008 11:35 GMT

Uri

What I would suggest before rebooting the server or sql server service is,
DBA must ensure that ; no user/application connection to sql server is
present. A nice clean shutdown (thats what Microsoft call it)
My procedure is
1. stop sql agent service
2. disconnect all users/application connection
3. stop the sql server service

vinu

> Linchi
> I have seen many times when people rebooted a server without stopping SQL
[quoted text clipped - 28 lines]
>>>
>>> Felipe

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David Hay - 23 Jul 2008 13:13 GMT

My 2 cents. I ALWAYS stop SQL myself prior to a reboot after having a
DB come up suspect on me once.

Look for any running jobs. If they are critical, wait till it is
finished, otherwise kill all active jobs in SQL Agent before stopping
SQL Agent.
The I stop the SQL Server Servce. This will stop any new transactions
from processing, and allow any that are in flux to complete and flush
to disk. This will save time on a restart as it won't need to replay
the transaction log when it brings the databases up.

Good luck!

David Hay

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