Summary

We have shown you how easy it is to configure and install both MSCS and SQL Server 2000 for SQL clustering. The 2-node, active/passive node is one of the most common SQL Clustering configurations used. As you become more familiar with SQL clustering and your high availability requirements changed (get closer to five 9s), other more advanced configurations might need to be put into place, such as 4-node SQL clusters and/or data center class clusters (of up to 8-node SQL clusters and active/active variations). If you follow the basic guidelines of disk configurations and database allocations across these disk configurations, as covered in this chapter, you will guarantee yourself a certain level of stability, performance, and scalability. We know money drives many alternatives, so the added exercise of calculating an ROI will help you better understand the impact of your chosen HA solution. For SQL clustering, it is one of the best, cost-effective solutions that is literally “out of the box” with SQL Server and the Windows family of servers.

Also remember, SQL Server 2000 supports other concepts for high availability such as data replication and log shipping. The next two chapters will drill down into these techniques and will highlight when these might be used as opposed to using SQL clustering.