Multiple Clusters with shared passive nodes

Is it possible to take 5 servers and make 4 individual clusters and
share the 5th server amongst all of them as the failover node? These
clusters would be running SQL 2000 and attached to a SAN enviroment.
Sort of - I'd create all 5 servers as members of a single cluster, then
set up 4 instances of SQL Server with cluster server member 1 configured
to be able to run instance 1, member 2 to run instance 2, member 3 to
run instance 3, member 4 to run instance 4, and member 5 to run
instances 1 2 3 and 4.
While you are able to have cluster member 5 be the failover for all the
other instances, there might be a better way to set which member servers
can run each instance, but its not difficult to change this at a later
date - it might not be an optimal configuration if all the instances are
of different memory needs or if you want to handle a situation where
more than one cluster member might be unavailable at a time.
Good luck,
Tony Sebion
"onefastmustang" <onefastmustang@.gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128006737.120461.270030@.g49g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com:

> Is it possible to take 5 servers and make 4 individual clusters and
> share the 5th server amongst all of them as the failover node? These
> clusters would be running SQL 2000 and attached to a SAN enviroment.
|||So in this architecture then I take it that each instance of SQL will
have to be in its own cluster group right?
So in cluster administrator I would have SQL1 Group, SQL2 Group, SQL3
Group and SQL4 Group? Each with its own SQL IP address and its own
drives? But also have a main Cluster Group that contains the Quorum
drive and Cluster management IP?
Thanks
|||Yup, that's exactly what I was thinking.
Tony
"onefastmustang" <onefastmustang@.gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128010958.220046.38020@.g14g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com:

> So in this architecture then I take it that each instance of SQL will
> have to be in its own cluster group right?
> So in cluster administrator I would have SQL1 Group, SQL2 Group, SQL3
> Group and SQL4 Group? Each with its own SQL IP address and its own
> drives? But also have a main Cluster Group that contains the Quorum
> drive and Cluster management IP?
> Thanks
|||There are a couple of Got'chas. What Tony is referring to is called a
"Round Robin" multi-instanced cluster. The one you described is referred to
as an "N + I" multi-instanced cluster. Both are supported; however, only
SS2K 64-bit allows more than 4 nodes in a SQL Server cluster. Windows 2K
Advanced Server only allows 2-node clusters. 2K Datacenter Edition supports
4-node clusters. Both Windows 2K3 Enterprise and Datacenter Editions
support 8-node clusters, but 32-bit SQL Server 2K does not unless the you
use the IA-64 edition.
PRB: Virtual SQL Server 2000 installation fails on cluster that has eight
nodes
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;811054
Windows Server 2003 Server Cluster Architecture
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...ercluster.mspx
Good luck.
Sincerely,
Anthony Thomas

"Tony Sebion" <tony@.sebion.com> wrote in message
news:3q2j44Fctu5kU1@.individual.net...
Yup, that's exactly what I was thinking.
Tony
"onefastmustang" <onefastmustang@.gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128010958.220046.38020@.g14g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com:

> So in this architecture then I take it that each instance of SQL will
> have to be in its own cluster group right?
> So in cluster administrator I would have SQL1 Group, SQL2 Group, SQL3
> Group and SQL4 Group? Each with its own SQL IP address and its own
> drives? But also have a main Cluster Group that contains the Quorum
> drive and Cluster management IP?
> Thanks