Installing a Two-node SQL Server 2008 Cluster – Advanced option

In Part II of this series, we showed you a step-by-step example of Integrated installation of SQL Server 2008 cluster. In this article, we will move onto the other installation option – Advanced/Enterprise installation. This option consists of two steps. The Prepare step prepares all nodes of the failover cluster, and installs SQL Server binaries on each node. Nodes in the cluster are configured during this step. After you prepare the nodes, you only need to run the Complete step on the active node that owns the shared disks. This step completes the failover cluster instance and makes it operational.

This article series is written based on the SQL Server 2008 RTM Developer Edition.

The steps are shown in detail below.

1.  Prepare both nodes of the failover cluster, NODE1 and NODE2, to be operational.

Our SQL Server installation media is in a shared folder called sqlserver2008 on a remote computer demopc. Here is the command we run in the command prompt on each node.

\\demopc\sqlserver2008\Setup.exe
/q /ACTION=PrepareFailoverCluster /FEATURES=SQL /INSTANCENAME=
 "MSSQLSERVER"
/INSTANCEDIR="C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server"
/INSTALLSHAREDDIR="C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server"
/SQLSVCACCOUNT="PowerDomain\SqlService"
/SQLSVCPASSWORD="P@ssw0rd" /AGTSVCACCOUNT="PowerDomain\SqlService"
/AGTSVCPASSWORD="P@ssw0rd" /SQLDOMAINGROUP="PowerDomain\SQLAdmins"
/AGTDOMAINGROUP="PowerDomain\SQLAdmins"

the output from the command

Each parameter in the command is explained in the table below.

Parameter

Description

/ACTION=PrepareFailoverCluster

Specifies that the local computer is to be prepared as a node in a SQL Server failover cluster.

/FEATURES=SQL

Specifies that only SQL Server Database Engine is to be installed.

/INSTANCENAME=”MSSQLSERVER”

Specifies a default instance is to be installed.

/INSTANCEDIR=”C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server”

Specifies the SQL Server binaries will be placed under the directory C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server.

/INSTALLSHAREDDIR=”C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server”

Specifies the binaries for the shared components will be placed under the directory C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server.

/SQLSVCACCOUNT=”PowerDomain\SqlService”

Specifies the SQL Server service account.

/SQLSVCPASSWORD=”P@ssw0rd”

Specifies the password for the SQL Server service account.

/AGTSVCACCOUNT=”PowerDomain\SqlService”

Specifies the SQL Server Agent service account.

/AGTSVCPASSWORD=”P@ssw0rd”

Specifies the password for the SQL Server Agent service account.

/SQLDOMAINGROUP=”PowerDomain\SQLAdmins”

Specifies the domain group that contains the SQL Server service account and will be used to control access to registry keys, files, SQL Server objects, and other cluster resources.

/AGTDOMAINGROUP=”PowerDomain\SQLAdmins”

Specifies the domain group that contains the SQL Server Agent service account.

After the installation of each node, we need to check the installation log files under the SQL Server binary directory. Figure 2 shows the list of log files on NODE1.

the list of log files on NODE1
Figure 2

You can start with the summary file, Summary_node1_xxxxxx.txt. This file provides the result of each component installation, and gives you a hint as to which component had the problem if the installation failed.

Notice that the binaries have been installed under C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server. However, database files have not been created on the shared disks D: and L:.

database files have not been created on the shared disks D: and L:
Figure 3

2.  The Complete step runs only on the active node. In our case, NODE1 owns the shared disk. Run the following command on NODE1.

\\demopc\sqlserver2008\setup.exe
/q /ACTION=CompleteFailoverCluster /INSTANCENAME="MSSQLSERVER"
/FAILOVERCLUSTERNETWORKNAME="SQL2008Cluster"
/FAILOVERCLUSTERGROUP="SQL Server 2008 Group"
/FAILOVERCLUSTERDISKS="SQL Data" "SQL Log"
/FAILOVERCLUSTERIPADDRESSES="IPv4;192.168.1.12;Public;255.255.255.0"
/SQLCOLLATION="SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_AS"
/SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS="PowerDomain\SqlService"
/INSTALLSQLDATADIR="D:\SQLServer"
/SQLUSERDBLOGDIR="L:\SQLServer\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Log"
/SQLTEMPDBLOGDIR="L:\SQLServer\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Log"

Notice that the value for the ACTION parameter is CompleteFailoverCluster

Yan Pan
Yan Pan
Yan Pan (MCITP SQL Server 2008, MCITP SQL Server 2005, MCDBA SQL Server 2000, OCA Oracle 10g) is a Senior DBA for a leading global financial services firm, where her daily duties include administering hundreds of SQL Server and Oracle servers of every possible version, working with business units on software development, troubleshooting database issues, and tuning database performance. She has written a Wrox book titled “Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Administration with Windows PowerShell” with MAK who is also a columnist for DatabaseJournal.com. You can check out the book at many book stores, such as Barnes & Noble, Borders. Previously, Yan worked as a SQL Server DBA and a .NET developer at Data Based Ads, Inc., and developed two .NET Web applications. Before that, she worked at AT&T Research Labs. She designed OLAP cubes with SQL Server Analysis Services and developed PivotTable reports for regional managers. She has master’s degrees in Computer Science and Physics.

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