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SQL Server Failover Cluster Installation

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To install a SQL Server failover cluster, you must create and configure a failover cluster instance by running SQL Server Setup.

Installing a Failover Cluster

To install a failover cluster, you must use a domain account with local administrator rights, permission to log on as a service, and to act as part of the operating system on all nodes in the failover cluster. To install a failover cluster by using the SQL Server Setup program, follow these steps:

  1. To install, configure, and maintain a SQL Server failover cluster, use SQL Server Setup.

    • Identify the information you need to create your failover cluster instance (for example, cluster disk resource, IP addresses, and network name) and the nodes available for failover. For more information:

    • The configuration steps must take place before you run the SQL Server Setup program; use the Windows Cluster Administrator to carry them out. You must have one WSFC group for each failover cluster instance you want to configure.

    • You must ensure that your system meets minimum requirements. For more information on specific requirements for a SQL Server failover cluster, see Before Installing Failover Clustering.

  2. Add or remove nodes from a failover cluster configuration without affecting the other cluster nodes. For more information, see Add or Remove Nodes in a SQL Server Failover Cluster (Setup).

    • All nodes in a failover cluster must be of the same platform, either 32-bit or 64-bit, and must run the same operating system edition and version. Also, 64-bit SQL Server editions must be installed on 64-bit hardware running the 64-bit versions of Windows operating systems. There is no WOW64 support for failover clustering in this release.

  3. Specify multiple IP addresses for each failover cluster instance. You can specify mutiple IP addresses for each subnet. If the mutiple IP addresses are on the same subnet, SQL Server Setup sets the dependency to AND. If you are clustering nodes across multiple subnets, SQL Server Setup sets the dependency to OR.

SQL Server Failover Cluster Installation options

Option 1: Integrated installation with Add Node

SQL Server integrated failover cluster installation consists of two steps:

  1. Create and configure a single-node SQL Server failover cluster instance. At the completion of a successful configuration of the node, you have a fully functional failover cluster instance. At this time it does not have high-availability because there is only one node in the failover cluster.

  2. On each node to be added to the SQL Server failover cluster, run Setup with Add Node functionality to add that node.

Option 2: Advanced/Enterprise installation

SQL Server Advanced/Enterprise failover cluster installation consists of two steps:

  1. On each node that will be part of the SQL Server failover cluster, run Setup with Prepare Failover Cluster functionality. This step prepares the nodes ready to be clustered, but there is no operational SQL Server instance at the end of this step.

  2. After the nodes are prepared for clustering, run Setup on the node that owns the shared disk with the Complete Failover Cluster functionality. This step configures and completes the failover cluster instance. At the end of this step, you will have an operational SQL Server failover cluster instance.

    Note

    Either installation option allows for multi-node SQL Server failover cluster installation. Add Node can be used to add additional nodes for either option after a SQL Server failover cluster has been created.

    Important

    The operating system drive letter for SQL Server install locations must match on all the nodes added to the SQL Server failover cluster.

IP Address Configuration During Setup

SQL Server Setup lets you set or change the IP resource dependency settings during the following actions:

Note IPV6 IP addresses are supported. If you configure both IPV4 and IPV6 there are treated like different subnets, and IPV6 is expected to come online first.

SQL Server Multi-Subnet Failover Cluster

You can set OR dependencies when the nodes on the cluster are on different subnets. However, each node in the SQL Server multi-subnet failover cluster must be a possible owner of at least one of IP address specified.

See Also

Before Installing Failover Clustering
Create a New SQL Server Failover Cluster (Setup)
Install SQL Server 2014 from the Command Prompt
Upgrade a SQL Server Failover Cluster