Hello,
I was assigned the task to design a new SQL 2014 environment for my company. Our current environment consists of two clusters of 4 nodes each (8 nodes total for the two clusters) in two datacenters (let's say LA & NY).
Each datacenter is both primary & DR for different applications. Each cluster is active/active and has 9 SQL instances - 1 DEV/2 UAT/4 PROD/2 DR.
We are using Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 + SQL 2008 R2 SP2 FCIs for HA + DBM for DR, storage is symmetric, LUNs are coming from NetApp SAN filers.
Due to the consolidated nature of the current SQL clusters (some hold 100+ DBs for different applications), the new platform - Windows 2012 R2 and that one WSFC cluster will be used, I decided to go with a new build instead of upgrade.
My plan for the migration to SQL 2014 is as follows:
1. Evict two nodes from each cluster, the 9 SQLs in each datacenter will run on two nodes and I will have two nodes more per site to build the new environment.
Average CPU utilization for each node is 10-20%, total max memory of all SQL Servers per site is 256GB RAM, each node has 2 CPUs x 8 cores each with 256GB RAM. SQLs will still run on two nodes with reasonable performance.
Since the same number of cores is used and we pay SA, there will be no increase in licensing costs for the time of migration to SQL 2014 and to obsolete the SQL 2008 R2 environment.
2. The new cluster will consists of 4 nodes with Windows 2012 R2 (2 in NY and 2 in LA) and will have Node+FileShare majority quorum model with Cluster Managed voting enabled.
3. New SQL 2014 FCIs will be built (9 per site) and will use Clustered Shared Volumes + AlwaysON Availability Groups. Once the new environment is built, databases will be migrated by backup/restore.
Since we will have AlwaysON FCIs+AlwaysON AGs I'm aware that automatic failover cannot be used and the complications with addition of data files on primary databases, that's fine (file paths will be different of primary and DR SQL instances).
My question is - is this a supported configuration from Microsoft - AlwaysON AGs running on CSVs in a multi-site cluster?
I am aware that CSVs are something new for the SQL world, so what are the things I should take into consideration when building this solution? Are there any pitfalls to be wary of?
Any suggestions will be much appreciated.
Thank you in advance,
I was assigned the task to design a new SQL 2014 environment for my company. Our current environment consists of two clusters of 4 nodes each (8 nodes total for the two clusters) in two datacenters (let's say LA & NY).
Each datacenter is both primary & DR for different applications. Each cluster is active/active and has 9 SQL instances - 1 DEV/2 UAT/4 PROD/2 DR.
We are using Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 + SQL 2008 R2 SP2 FCIs for HA + DBM for DR, storage is symmetric, LUNs are coming from NetApp SAN filers.
Due to the consolidated nature of the current SQL clusters (some hold 100+ DBs for different applications), the new platform - Windows 2012 R2 and that one WSFC cluster will be used, I decided to go with a new build instead of upgrade.
My plan for the migration to SQL 2014 is as follows:
1. Evict two nodes from each cluster, the 9 SQLs in each datacenter will run on two nodes and I will have two nodes more per site to build the new environment.
Average CPU utilization for each node is 10-20%, total max memory of all SQL Servers per site is 256GB RAM, each node has 2 CPUs x 8 cores each with 256GB RAM. SQLs will still run on two nodes with reasonable performance.
Since the same number of cores is used and we pay SA, there will be no increase in licensing costs for the time of migration to SQL 2014 and to obsolete the SQL 2008 R2 environment.
2. The new cluster will consists of 4 nodes with Windows 2012 R2 (2 in NY and 2 in LA) and will have Node+FileShare majority quorum model with Cluster Managed voting enabled.
3. New SQL 2014 FCIs will be built (9 per site) and will use Clustered Shared Volumes + AlwaysON Availability Groups. Once the new environment is built, databases will be migrated by backup/restore.
Since we will have AlwaysON FCIs+AlwaysON AGs I'm aware that automatic failover cannot be used and the complications with addition of data files on primary databases, that's fine (file paths will be different of primary and DR SQL instances).
My question is - is this a supported configuration from Microsoft - AlwaysON AGs running on CSVs in a multi-site cluster?
I am aware that CSVs are something new for the SQL world, so what are the things I should take into consideration when building this solution? Are there any pitfalls to be wary of?
Any suggestions will be much appreciated.
Thank you in advance,