Installation order for SQL Server 2000 Enterprise edition on Microsoft Cluster Server

This article describes the general requirements and steps for installing Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition on Microsoft Cluster Server.

Note All content for this article and more is in Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Books Online and is indexed under the "failover clustering" topic. For your convenience, the information has been converted to this Microsoft Knowledge Base.

SQL Server 2000 Books Online should be the first resource you use for failover clustering questions.

Failover clustering

In Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition, SQL Server 2000 failover clustering provides high availability support. For example, during an operating system failure or a planned upgrade, you can configure one failover cluster to fail over to any other node in the failover cluster configuration. This way, you minimize system downtime, thus providing high server availability.

Before you install failover clustering

Before you install a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 failover cluster, you must select the operating system on which your computer will run. You can use Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Enterprise Edition, Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server, or Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. You also must install Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS).

Note Experienced users that are looking specifically for the SQL Server 2000 cluster installation steps should refer to the "Creating a Failover Cluster, Actual installation" section of this article.

Warning Microsoft recommends that all users use this article in its entirety.

Pre-installation checklist

Before you begin the installation process, verify that:

• There is no IRQ sharing between network interface cards (NICs) and drive/array (SCSI) controllers. Although some hardware might support this sharing, it is not recommended.
  
  
• Your hardware is listed on the Microsoft Windows NT Hardware Compatibility List. For a complete list of supported hardware, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
  http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/default.mspx
  The hardware system must be listed in the Cluster category. Individual cluster components that you add together do not constitute an approved system. Only systems purchased as a cluster solution, which are listed in the cluster group, are approved. When you check the list, select Cluster as the category for your search. All other categories are for OEM use.
  
  
• MSCS has been installed completely on at least one node before you run Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Enterprise Edition, Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server or Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server simultaneously on all nodes. When you use MSCS, you must make certain that one node is in control of the shared SCSI bus prior to the other nodes coming online. Failing to make certain that one node is in control of the shared SCSI bus can cause an application failover to go into an online pending state. Consequently, the cluster either fails on the other node or fails totally. However, if your hardware manufacturer has a proprietary installation process, follow the hardware manufacturer instructions.
  
  
• Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) is installed according to the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
  258750 Recommended private "heartbeat" configuration on a cluster server
• The disk drive letters for the cluster-capable disks are the same on both servers.
  
  
• You have disabled NetBIOS for all private network cards before you start the SQL Server Setup program.
  
  
• You have cleared the system logs in all nodes and viewed the system logs again. Make sure that the logs are free of any error messages before you continue.

Installing failover clustering

If you are installing Microsoft SQL Server 2000 failover clustering on Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Enterprise Edition, you must install the programs in the order specified in the steps that follow. If you are installing failover clustering on Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server or Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, these steps do not apply.

Caution If you do not install the programs in the following order, the software products might fail on installation and require you to re-initialize the disk and re-start the installation.

Before you install SQL Server 2000 in a failover cluster configuration, you must upgrade any pre-release versions of SQL Server 2000.

To install failover clustering on Windows NT 4.0:

1. Install Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Enterprise Edition. Windows NT 4.0, Enterprise Edition includes Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 3. Service Pack 3 is required to install Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS).
   
   
   • Do not install Service Pack 4, or later, if you intend to install the Windows NT Option Pack.
     
     
   • Do not install Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS).
   
   
   Important IIS is installed by default. Microsoft recommends that you clear the IIS option during the Windows NT 4.0 installation.
2. Install MSCS.
3. Install Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.0 or later.
4. Manually create a Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) compatible resource group where the MSDTC setup can create its resources. This should contain an IP address, network name, and cluster disk resource. Any group with these three items is compatible with MSDTC.
   
   The SQL Server Setup program installs MSDTC in a later step. Install the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack only if you require components of the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack other than the MSDTC.
5. Install the latest Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack, which is Service Pack 5. Click Create an uninstall directory, click Year 2000 Setup, and then select the Service Pack install for Intel based systems check box.
   
   Do not select Microsoft Message Queue Server (MSMQ 1.0) or IIS. MSMQ 1.0 is not supported on SQL Server 2000. Microsoft recommends that you use IIS functionality with the Microsoft Windows NT Load Balancing Service (WLBS). Prior to step 5, Microsoft recommends that you rename the hidden directory $NTServicePackUninstall$ to $NTServicePackUninstall$.service pack number. After you install the service pack, add a new directory. This way you have uninstall directories available, which prevents the directories from being accidentally overwritten.
6. Prior to step 5, Microsoft recommends that you rename the hidden directory $NTServicePackUninstall$ to $NTServicePackUninstall$.service pack number. After you install the service pack, add a new directory. This way you have uninstall directories available, which prevents the directories from being accidentally overwritten.
7. Install SQL Server 2000.
   
   Note Clustered SQL Server installations require the TCP/IP protocol, and we recommend that the Named Pipes protocol be installed and enabled. For additional information about the Named Pipes requirement, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
   831127 Named Pipes support cannot be removed on a virtual server that is running SQL Server 2000 S831127
   TCP/IP is required because it is the only supported protocol for use with server clusters.

Note Install any additional server products before you install any other applications.

To install failover clustering on Microsoft Windows 2000:

1. Install Windows 2000 and accept the default application choices.
2. After you install Windows 2000 on the first node and before you install MSCS, click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Configure Your Server.
3. Click Advanced\Cluster Service, and then in the right pane click Learn More.
4. In the Windows 2000 Help menu, review item 2 in the "Windows Clustering" topic. Windows Clustering is used during the installation of Windows 2000 and with SQL Server 2000 failover clustering. Follow the instructions in the "Windows Clustering" topic to install MSCS.
   
   Important You must read the "Planning for Windows Clustering\Requirements" for server clusters and follow the checklist for server clusters named "Checklist: Creating a server cluster". The "Checklist: Creating a server cluster" topic is located under the "Server Clusters section\Checklist" for server clusters topic.
5. After you successfully install MSCS, you must configure MSDTC to run on a cluster. For more information about MSDTC, see the "Failover Clustering Dependencies" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
6. On the Start menu, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, point to Cluster Administrator, and then click View Groups\Cluster Group. If the group contains an MSDTC resource, proceed to step 9. If the group does not contain an MSDTC resource, complete the following two steps.
7. On the Start menu, click Run. In the Run dialog box, enter the command
   cmd
   and then click Ok. In the Command Prompt window, on the command line, enter:
   Comclust.exe
8. Repeat step 7 on the remaining nodes of the cluster, one node at a time.
9. Install SQL Server 2000.
   
   Note Clustered SQL Server installations require the TCP/IP protocol, and we recommend that the Named Pipes protocol be installed and enabled. For additional information about the Named Pipes requirement, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
   831127 Named Pipes support cannot be removed on a virtual server that is running SQL Server 2000 S831127
   TCP/IP is required because it is the only supported protocol for use with server clusters.

Note Install any additional server products before you install any user applications.

Cluster Disk Selection screen

Use the Cluster Disk Selection screen to select a cluster group during the installation of a new virtual server or during an upgrade to a cluster. A cluster group is composed of one or more shared cluster disks within a group, and can contain at most one Microsoft SQL Server virtual server. The Cluster Disk Selection screen lists only those groups that already have the shared cluster disk added as a resource. For more information about cluster disks, see the "Creating a Failover Cluster" section of this article or refer to the "Creating a Failover Cluster" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.

Caution Do not select the quorum disk (the last group in the list) because the quorum disk must be treated as a special resource. A warning message appears if you select the quorum disk. For more information, see the "Quorum Disk Selection Warning" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.

When you use a small cluster, the quorum disk may be the only choice available. Use the quorum disk only for testing purposes or to explore failover clustering.

Important Never use the quorum group for production purposes.

Handling a failover cluster installation

When you install a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 failover cluster, you must:

• Make sure that the operating system is installed properly and designed to support failover clustering. For more information about what to do before you install a failover cluster, see the "Before Installing Failover Clustering" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online or the "Pre-Installation Checklist" section listed earlier in this article. For more information about the order of installation, see the "Installing Failover Clustering" section also listed earlier in this article or the "Installing Failover Clustering" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  
  
• Consider whether the SQL Server tools, features, and components you want to use are supported with failover clustering. For more information, see the "Failover Clustering Support" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  
  Here is a summary of the tools, features and components that are supported with failover clustering:
  
  

  Microsoft Search service	For more information, see the "Using SQL Server Tools with Failover Clustering" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  Multiple instances	For more information, see the "Failover Clustering" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  SQL Server Enterprise Manager	For more information, see the "Using SQL Server Tools with Failover Clustering" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  Service Control Manager	For more information, see the "Using SQL Server Tools with Failover Clustering" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  Replication	For more information, see the "Creating a Failover Cluster" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  SQL Profiler	For more information, see the "Using SQL Server Tools with Failover Clustering" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  SQL Query Analyzer	For more information, see the "Using SQL Server Tools with Failover Clustering" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.

  
  
  
• Consider whether failover clustering is dependent on the products you want to use. There are several products that interact with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 failover clustering. To make sure that your failover cluster functions properly, you must understand the underlying dependencies that failover clustering has on other products. For more information, see the "Failover Clustering Dependencies" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  
  
• Consider how to create a new failover cluster. For more information about creating a new failover cluster configuration, see the "Creating a Failover Cluster" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  
  
• Review the instructions for upgrading from a SQL Server version 6.5 or SQL Server version 7.0 cluster to a SQL Server 2000 failover cluster. For more information, see the "Upgrading to a SQL Server 2000 Failover Cluster" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  
  
• Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC). SQL Server 2000 requires the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) in the cluster for distributed queries and two-phase commit transactions, as well as for some replication functionality. After you install Microsoft Windows 2000 and configure your cluster, you must run the Cluster Wizard (the Comclust.exe program) on all nodes to configure MSDTC to run in clustered mode, as previously directed earlier in this document. For more information, see the "Failover Clustering Dependencies" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.

How to create a failover cluster

To create a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 failover cluster, you must create and configure the virtual servers on which the failover cluster runs. You create virtual servers during SQL Server setup. Virtual servers are not provided by Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 or Microsoft Windows 2000.

To create a failover cluster, you must be a local administrator with rights to log on as a service and to act as part of the operating system on all computers in the failover cluster.

Elements of a virtual server

A virtual server contains:

• A combination of one or more disks in a Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) cluster group.
  
  Each MSCS cluster group can contain at most one virtual SQL Server.
  
  
• A network name for each virtual server. This network name is the virtual server name.
  
  
• One or more IP addresses that are used to connect to each virtual server.
  
  
• One instance of SQL Server 2000, including a SQL Server resource, a SQL Server Agent resource, and a full-text resource.
  
  If an administrator uninstalls an instance of SQL Server 2000 within a virtual server, the virtual server, including all IP addresses and the network name, is also removed from the MSCS cluster group.

A failover cluster can run across one or more actual Windows 2000 Advanced Server or Windows 2000 Datacenter Server servers or Windows NT 4.0, Enterprise Edition servers that are participating nodes of the cluster. However, a SQL Server virtual server always appears on the network as a single Windows 2000 Advanced Server server, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server server, or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Enterprise Edition server.

Naming a virtual server

SQL Server 2000 depends on distinct registry keys and service names within the failover cluster so that operations continue correctly after a failover. Therefore, the name you provide for the instance of SQL Server 2000, including the default instance, must be unique across all nodes in the failover cluster, as well as across all virtual servers within the failover cluster. For example, if all instances failed over to a single server, their service names and registry keys would conflict. If INST1 is a named instance on virtual server VIRTSRV1, there cannot be a named instance with the name INST1 on any node in the failover cluster, either as part of a failover cluster configuration or as a stand-alone installation.

Additionally, you must use the VIRTUAL_SERVER\Instance-name string to connect to a clustered instance of SQL Server 2000 running on a virtual server. You cannot access the instance of SQL Server 2000 by using the computer name that the clustered instance happens to reside on at any given time. SQL Server 2000 does not listen on the IP address of the local servers. It listens only on the clustered IP addresses created during the setup of a virtual server for SQL Server 2000.

Usage considerations

Before you create a failover cluster, consider the following:

• If you are using the Windows 2000 Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) API to take advantage of memory greater than 3 gigabytes (GB), make certain that the maximum available memory you configure on one instance of SQL Server will still be available after you fail over to another node. If the failover node has less physical memory than the original node, instances of SQL Server may fail to start or may start with less memory than they had on the original node. You must:
  • Give each server in the cluster the same amount of physical RAM.
    
    
  • Make sure that the summed value of the max server memory settings for all instances is less than the lowest amount of physical RAM available on any of the virtual servers in the failover cluster.
  For more information about AWE, see the "Using AWE Memory on Windows 2000" topic in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  
  
• If you need high-availability servers in replication, Microsoft recommends that you use an MSCS cluster file share as your snapshot folder when you configure a Distributor on a failover cluster. In the case of server failure, the distribution database is available and replication can continue to be configured at the Distributor.
  
  Also, when you create publications, specify the MSCS cluster file share for the additional storage of snapshot files or specify the MSCS cluster as the location from which Subscribers apply the snapshot. This way, the snapshot files are available to all nodes of the cluster and to all Subscribers that must access the snapshot files. For more information, see the "Publishers, Distributors, and Subscribers" and "Alternate Snapshot Locations" topics in SQL Server 2000 Books Online.
  
  
• If you want to use encryption with a failover cluster, you must install the server certificate with the fully qualified DNS name of the virtual server on all nodes in the failover cluster. For example, if you have a two-node cluster, with nodes named test1.widgets.corp.microsoft.com and test2.widgets.corp.microsoft.com and a virtual SQL Server "Virtsql", you need to get a certificate for "virtsql.widgets.corp.microsoft.com" and install the certificate on both nodes. Then, you can select the Force protocol encryption check box in the Server Network Utility to configure your failover cluster for encryption.
  
  
• You should not remove the BUILTIN/Administrators account from SQL Server. The ISALIVE thread runs under the context of the cluster service account, and not the SQL Server service account. The cluster service must be part of the administrator group on each node of the cluster. If you remove the BUILTIN/Administrators account, the ISALIVE thread will no longer be able to create a trusted connection, and you lose access to the virtual server.

Creating a failover cluster: Actual installation

Here are the basic steps for creating a failover cluster using the Setup program:

1. Identify the information you need to create your virtual server (for example, cluster disk resource, IP addresses, and network name) and the nodes available for failover.
   
   The cluster disks to use for failover clustering should all be in a single cluster group and owned by the node from which the Setup program is run. This configuration must occur before you run the Setup program. You configure this through the Cluster Administrator in Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000. You need one MSCS group for each virtual server you want to set up.
2. Start the Setup program to begin your installation. After all the necessary information is entered, the Setup program installs a new instance of SQL Server binaries on the local disk of each computer in the cluster and installs the system databases on the specified cluster disk. The binaries are installed in exactly the same path on each cluster node, so you must ensure that each node has a local drive letter in common with all the other nodes in the cluster. In SQL Server 2000, during a failover, only the databases fail over. In SQL Server version 6.5 and SQL Server version 7.0, both the SQL Server databases and binaries fail over during a failover.
   
   If any resource (including SQL Server) fails for any reason, the services (SQL Server, SQL Server Agent, Full-Text Search, and all services in the failover cluster group) fail over to any available nodes defined in the virtual server.
   
   
3. Install one instance of SQL Server 2000, which creates a new virtual server and all resources.

For more information about creating a new failover cluster configuration, and other topics related to Clustering, refer to the following topics in SQL Server 2000 Books Online:

• Upgrading to a SQL Server 2000 Failover Cluster
• How to install a one-node failover cluster
• Failover Clustering FAQ
• Adding/removing nodes
• Maintaining
• Full-text queries
• Troubleshooting

For more information, refer to the following book: