| Q1. |
Is it qualified and approved by Microsoft's SQL Server Always On program? |
| A1. |
Yes, since early in 2006.
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/technologies/highavailability/default.mspx |
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| Q2. |
Does the solution require a special version of Microsoft's SQL Server? |
| A2. |
No. The HP PolyServe Software for Microsoft SQL Server supports the normal Standard and Enterprise versions of SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. We provide a non-intrusive, easily managed, highly available platform to run normal instances of SQL Server on. |
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| Q3. |
Can you run both SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 on the same cluster? |
| A3. |
Yes. Both versions are supported concurrently within the same cluster. |
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| Q4. |
How do you handle upgrade from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005? |
| A4. |
There is a migration tool provided which includes the ability to upgrade SQL Server instances. It allows the SQL Server upgrade to be performed as part of an instance migration. The tool incorporates Microsoft's SQL Server instance migration best practice. You may also use the SQL Server 2005 migration wizard as part of this migration effort. |
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| Q5. |
How do you install SQL Server and SQL Server updates? |
| A5. |
The HP PolyServe management console includes a multi-install component that allows SQL Server, Service Packs, and Hot Fixes to be installed in a parallel operation across the entire cluster with a single operation |
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| Q6. |
How does a SQL Server DBA manage SQL Server instances in the HP PolyServe cluster? |
| A6. |
The HP PolyServe Software for Microsoft SQL Server supports the normal Microsoft DBA tools and utilities for management of SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. The DBA will continue to manage SQL Server instances with the same tools as they presently use. |
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| Q7. |
Can you access the database files from multiple nodes? |
| A7. |
Yes, the SQL Server data files are accessible from all nodes in the cluster. All physical servers have shared access to a common storage repository for the SQL Server files provided by the HP PolyServe Software (via its cluster filesystem). Due to the architecture of SQL Server 2005, multiple SQL Server instances can have read-only access to any individual database file simultaneously. However, because the design of SQL Server is a “shared-nothing” database server, only one SQL Server can have read-write access to any particular database file at one time. |
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| Q8. |
How do you handle registry changes? |
| A8. |
The solution incorporates a Registry Replicator component. It’s designed to watch for changes in the registry and persists relevant changes onto the HP PolyServe Software cluster filesystem. When necessary, the current state of the relevant registry keys and their values are automatically installed onto the new cluster node as part of the SQL Server instance transition process. |
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| Q9. |
Do you have a migration path for SQL Server 2000? For SQL Server 2005? |
| A9. |
Yes. HP provides a migration tool that supports both SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 migration with optional upgrade from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005 as part of the process. This process also supports promotion from a 32-bit to a 64-bit environment. |
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| Q10. |
What are the benefits of having the shared file system beside it's HA capability? |
| A10. |
You can distribute workload among the nodes. i.e. for an ETL process; one node does the data Extract to shared disk, another node picks this up and performs data scrubbing or Transformation, and yet another node takes the scrubbed data and Loads it into a Data Warehouse or third party analysis tool. Also, file backup operations can be centralized by having SQL Server instances write their backups to the shared filesystem and then performing the delivery to midline storage via any node in the cluster. All nodes see all the storage, so any node can backup all the shared data for the whole cluster. Shared fileservers also allow DBA’s to isolate files (Sys, TempDB, Logs, Data) on their own file systems where performance is most important or stack multiple files in a shared file system to maximize consolidation, and do so all in the same HP PolyServe cluster. |
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| Q11. |
How long does it take for a SQL Server instance to failover? |
| A11. |
It only takes the amount of time to stop and start the SQL Server instance - which is generally very fast. There is no disk dependency and no hardware failover required which improves both the time and dependability of the failover solution. Typically, this is accomplished within 30 seconds, however it will be dependent upon the number of transactions that need to be replayed during startup of the instance after a failure. |
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| Q12. |
How do you manage name resolution and virtualization? |
| A12. |
SQL Server application clients connect to a virtualized connection service provided as part of the HP PolyServe Software for Microsoft SQL Server solution. The software creates a virtual host (vhost) for client connectivity and can freely move the vhost between the nodes in the cluster. The vhost is accessed via it's own IP Address and a Hostname that are managed within DNS like any other server's address. The solution provides an instance name aliasing service which allows the resolution and mapping of client requests onto the correct SQL instances within the cluster without having to change every client's connection configuration when moving to the HP PolyServe solution. |
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| Q13. |
Can HP PolyServe support multiple instances residing on default port 1433? |
| A13. |
Default SQL Server instances use the port 1433 for establishing client connections. So, without the HP PolyServe solution, only one default SQL Server instance can be running on an individual physical server at a time. The unique Instance Aliasing Tool provided by the HP PolyServe solution allows multiple, distinct 'default instances' to be transparently mapped onto uniquely named instances even on an individual physical server. No other clustering technology can accomplish this since every other solution outside of the HP PolyServe Software for Microsoft SQL Server requires a 1:1 ratio of default instances per physical server. |
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| Q14. |
Does HP PolyServe help me consolidate instances of SQL Server? |
| A14. |
Yes. Once your SQL instances are running in the HP PolyServe cluster, you can stack multiple SQL Server instances on each of the physical servers. If any server becomes over utilized, you can then easily and quickly move individual instances to alternate or bigger servers via the solution's Dynamic Rehosting mechanism. Thus, the solution takes away the risks of incorrect sizing which was previously associated with SQL Server instance stacking. In general the way that customers drive up physical server utilization is to consolidate by stacking multiple SQL instances on each single server in the HP PolyServe cluster. Additionally, the ability to support full high availability for all SQL Server instances in the cluster using an N+2 set of physical servers instead of the usual N+N servers with traditional active-passive cluster technology provides further consolidation. Both these approaches are provided within the HP PolyServe solution. |
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| Q15. |
Can you run different versions of SQL Server on the same cluster? |
| A15. |
Yes. Both the Standard and Enterprise versions of SQL are supported. However, SQL Server licensing restricts an individual physical server to only one version of SQL license at any one time. The solution fully supports the SQL server stacking capability of up to 16 instances of SQL Server 2000 and 50 instances of SQL Server 2005 per node. |
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