Re: Breaking a Sql Cluster

Ouch! High Availability and Low Budget are terms that should not be seen in
the same sentence. If you are not going to have any extra SAN space, you
could keep all 3 nodes and then do a *local* install of SQL 2005 on one
node, and migrate DB's from one existing instance to it. You lose the HA,
but you were gonna lose it anyway. Once all of the DB's in once instance
have moved to it, then remove the old instance and install a *clustered* SQL
2005 instance on that same cluster. Detach the DB's from the local instance
and, copy and move them to the clustered instance. Remove the local
instance whenever you like. Now you have the HA and SQL 2005. You'll have
to insure that the individual node has enough local disk capacity to receive
the DB's that you want to shuffle over there.

--
Tom

----------------------------------------------------
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA, MCITP, MCTS
SQL Server MVP
Toronto, ON Canada
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Tom.Moreau


"David" <David@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:9A48DA7E-91B2-4371-98B3-642E16FC0E2E@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
2 reasons, First, we can't do an upgrade because we know some of the
databases are not compatible with SQL 2005 so an inline upgrade won't work
for us. Second, Microsoft recommended we create another cluster group and
install along side the existing but we don't have the disk space on the
existing SAN and we are currently in an extreme budget crunch right now so
expanding is out of the question. So with no server money or SAN money we
talked about breaking the cluster and doing a fresh SQL install on the new
server once we took the passive node from the cluster. We should have
Active/Passive and not active/active/passive after it's done, right?

"Tom Moreau" wrote:

Why not keep the cluster and run SQL 2005 on there?

--
Tom

----------------------------------------------------
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA, MCITP, MCTS
SQL Server MVP
Toronto, ON Canada
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Tom.Moreau


"David" <David@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:A05DA0CB-60E8-4EB4-A2E3-7DF5A2CBF031@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Yes we are aware we lose the high availability. After we have the
standalone
we are going to install SQL 2005 on the box and migrate our databases to
the
standalone SQL 2005 box. After all the migration is complete we will
probably
kill the cluster and use the servers for something else. There was some
talk
about possibly building another cluster later.

"Tom Moreau" wrote:

A cluster can run with even one node. What you are planning is quite
feasible. What are your plans once you have the DB's on the
stand-alone?
Keep in mind that on a stand-alone server, you lose the high
availability
that you once had.

--
Tom

----------------------------------------------------
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA, MCITP, MCTS
SQL Server MVP
Toronto, ON Canada
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Tom.Moreau


"David" <David@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:167E99AC-0D2C-4FA5-8A07-0ED3A45CDB68@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
We have an Active/Active/Passive SQL 2000 cluster and budgetary
constraints
have made it impossible for us to upgrade the hardware to new servers.
Our
current servers are capable of handling the upgrade but some of our
databases
might not be compatible with SQL 2005. Can we evict the passive node,
make
it a standalone, upgrade it and then migrate the databases to the new
server
without killing the cluster? Will the cluster run if the passive node is
evicted?








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