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    I have low experience of SQL management because of Configuration Manager, and now I´m thinking about to setup SQL 2012 cluster in my lab enviroment based on Hyper-V 2012 core installation. I tried to study some best practise, but still this is not so clear for me:

    1. WSUS, Configuration Manager, Operation Manager and Virtual Machine Manager will use this SQL cluster. Is it okay that there will be only one instance for all these products and multiple database?

    2. What kind of partition structure you would recommend for this scenario? Should quorum disk be placed on a shared storage for SQL installation, or will both nodes contain their own quorum partition? I´m thinking that nodes will have only C: drive with Windows Server and SQL software installed. Other partitions will contain database and will be shared. Should I put instance also on this shared partition?

    3. GUI installation of SQL is not supported on core nodes. I´m not going to build a silent install file, it will become too tricky for me now. Should I just sattle for full gui server install for SQL nodes? Is the core use still supported in SQL?

    4. Does SQL cluster really require separate File Server, maybe file cluster?

    Friday, July 5, 2013 9:45 AM

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    1.It depends on size and load..i thnk one instance with 3-4 databse will handle load quite well

    2. Quorum has to be placed on shared drive/SAN, cdrive is local to each node and so will not be on shared drive.All sql files will be placed on shared drive its good to put data and log on different drives (shared).You can install instance on local drive but data and logs will be on shared drive.U can but backup (local )on local drive

    3.I would like u to use GUI installation as it is very informative and will enable you to understand each option.

    4. SQL server may not require file server,are you talking about configuring quorum using disk and file majority?

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    Friday, July 5, 2013 10:06 AM

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    1.It depends on size and load..i thnk one instance with 3-4 databse will handle load quite well

    2. Quorum has to be placed on shared drive/SAN, cdrive is local to each node and so will not be on shared drive.All sql files will be placed on shared drive its good to put data and log on different drives (shared).You can install instance on local drive but data and logs will be on shared drive.U can but backup (local )on local drive

    3.I would like u to use GUI installation as it is very informative and will enable you to understand each option.

    4. SQL server may not require file server,are you talking about configuring quorum using disk and file majority?

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    Friday, July 5, 2013 10:06 AM
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    Thanks!

    Just to be clear:

    2. I will have 1 instance, but 3-6 databases. During the installation of SQL on a node, should I put Instance to shared drive, or C:?

    3. Yes, in any case, I must use GUI SQL installation wizard, but should I still keep node as Windows Core Server?

    4. I need to setup quorum disk and msdtc before SQL cluster install. I should do this by using MS cluster fail over installation. But by installing fail over "utility", the node won´t become a fail server?

    Friday, July 5, 2013 10:35 AM
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    Thanks!

    Just to be clear:

    2. I will have 1 instance, but 3-6 databases. During the installation of SQL on a node, should I put Instance to shared drive, or C:?
    No please put your instance on shared drive make sure nothing apart from OS files are there on C drive

    3. Yes, in any case, I must use GUI SQL installation wizard, but should I still keep node as Windows Core Server?

    Please use complete version of windows  server not core version it has limited features for cluster installation this link has steps for Win cluster installation link ( i am not aware whether u can install cluster on windows server core)

    4. I need to setup quorum disk and msdtc before SQL cluster install. I should do this by using MS cluster fail over installation. But by installing fail over "utility", the node won´t become a fail server?..I cannot understand this comment Failover means that if your cluster node which is owner of cluster now fails your cluster will failover or make other node it owner..nodes dont failover its the resourced that failover

    I would like u to read for quorum.this link and for msdtc this link.

    My comments in bold

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    • Proposed as answer by Fanny Liu Monday, July 15, 2013 8:05 AM
    Friday, July 5, 2013 10:59 AM
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    Core Server can be managed via dashboard and powershell, it´s not a problem for me. Only issue could be when launching SQL setup wizard locally on the core server. SQL cluster installation on core is supported scenario, I checked that.

    Though, I´m having some troubles with storage when I´m creating fail over cluster. Even this as SQL forum, maybe some has a quick answer?

    In VMware ESXi, when I created a fail over cluster for file server useage, I simply add a single disk to both VM nodes, and after that, it appeared in cluster manager as an available disk.

    Now in Hyper-V, I can´t add disks in both nodes at the same time. I don´t know, how I should create a disk that it would be connected to both nodes, and visible to failover cluster manager. I tried googling this, but all I can get, how to create Hyper-V Cluster and that´s not my case.


    Friday, July 5, 2013 3:15 PM
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    Now in Hyper-V, I can´t add disks in both nodes at the same time. I don´t know, how I should create a disk that it would be connected to both nodes, and visible to failover cluster manager. I tried googling this, but all I can get, how to create Hyper-V Cluster and that´s not my case.


    Hi,

    Just this piece of question if you post in Forum related to Hyper V may be u will get quick and  better answer /you can also try posting in windows server 2012 forum.. 

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    Saturday, July 6, 2013 10:27 AM
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    Now I have a valid FC installation, and I´m thinking should I care about MSDTC or not? Because its configuration seems difficult or I have lack of information. I´m planning to set 3 System Center profucts, SCCM, SCOM and SCVMM to use same SQL server, using single instance. Also I want WSUS to use that SQL. I want to avoid, that none of other servers would need their own SQL installations.
    Tuesday, July 16, 2013 9:37 PM
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    Now I have a valid FC installation, and I´m thinking should I care about MSDTC or not? Because its configuration seems difficult or I have lack of information. I´m planning to set 3 System Center profucts, SCCM, SCOM and SCVMM to use same SQL server, using single instance. Also I want WSUS to use that SQL. I want to avoid, that none of other servers would need their own SQL installations.

    For MSDTC installation see the discussion here and steps to install here.

    Your server should be of high end configuration to support all these.May be 32 GB RAM would be good ,it also depends on how often data is coming in SCOM and how much server it is monitoring.

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    Wednesday, July 17, 2013 9:43 AM
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    Excelent, thanx for instructions, I was trying to find something like that, but I couldn´t!

    This is a lab, and my hardware contains only 20gb ram, and it will be shared between 6-10 servers. Also my storage is not so high performanced. And the usage of lab will be temporary, meaning that VMs will go to suspend and resume mode very often. Remote SQL connection could suffer from this, right?

    So, the question still remains, should I do this at all, or just suttle for installing SQL management do every server which requires it?

    From one point, it would be awsome to play around with SQL cluster like "centralized" solution, but it could end with wasting lot of time, and going back to the old way of doing things.

    Wednesday, July 17, 2013 5:40 PM
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    Excelent, thanx for instructions, I was trying to find something like that, but I couldn´t!

    This is a lab, and my hardware contains only 20gb ram, and it will be shared between 6-10 servers. Also my storage is not so high performanced. And the usage of lab will be temporary, meaning that VMs will go to suspend and resume mode very often. Remote SQL connection could suffer from this, right?

    Ofcorse it will...you will  face fluctuation..

    So, the question still remains, should I do this at all, or just suttle for installing SQL management do every server which requires it?

    If you want to play around with it as you already told you ca go ahaed

    From one point, it would be awsome to play around with SQL cluster like "centralized" solution, but it could end with wasting lot of time, and going back to the old way of doing things.


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    Thursday, July 18, 2013 6:48 AM