Authored by: AVINASH KUMAR SINGH

Installing SQL Server Clustering With Highly Available Reporting Services

CONFIGURING SQL SERVER 2012 CLUSTERING

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SQL SERVER HIGH AVAILABLITY WITH CLUSTERING

In this part of document we will install and configure SQL server clustering of SQL SERVER 2012

Database Server with a highly available Reporting Services. These are the basic prerequisites for

SQL Server Clustering with a highly available Reporting Services

DOMAIN SERVER -172.16.100.162

Node 1 SQL SEREVR DATABASE AND REPORTING SERVICES - 172.16.100.192

Node 2 SQL SEREVR DATABASE AND REPORTING SERVICES - 172.16.100.193

SAN (Storage Area Network)

Following are the Virtual IP’S required apart from the physical IP of this machine

Windows Cluster IP- 172.16.100.95

Distributed Transaction Control IP- 172.16.100.96

SQL server Cluster IP-172.16.100.197

Reporting Services Virtual IP. -172.16.100.207

Our target is to achieve the following architecture design by performing the following steps

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Let’s kick start the steps assuming that we have one domain sever and have added node1 and

node2 already in the domain. Since in the testing environment it is not possible to use SAN so

here we are using STARTWIND Software installed on the domain sever as virtual SAN which will

give us the shared disk for SQL server Cluster.

Below is the example of creating shared disk on STARWIND SOFTWARE not necessary if you

have SAN we will create 4 shared disks.

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Now we have successfully created disk drive for storing SQL Server Data File in the same way

we will create three more drives for storing log files of SQL Server and MSTDC and quorum.

Finally after creating 4 disk drives the console of starwind software will show 4 drives as in the following

screen shot.

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Now we have created this four drives we will add these four drives by ISCSI on both machines follow the

following steps to add these drives on both machines.

Perform the following steps as shown in the screen shot. Assuming that we have already installed ISCI

feature on both machine now we add 172.16.100.162 ip were we have created disks to be added on the

cluster.

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It will show the disk images created on that machine now connect to each disk drive and perform this

step on both machine.

Now go to the following location on node 1 Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Administrative

Tools. Click on the computer management .Navigate to the disk management and you will see the disk

drives as follows. Bring them online and follow the following steps as shown in the screen shots.

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After format is complete now disk drive will be mounted repeat the steps for all drives on this node and

another node after all disk are successfully added the disk management console will show all shared

disks ready as shown.

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Now we have added the disks we will install Windows Cluster on both nodes by selecting Windows

Cluster feature on both the nodes

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Repeat the above step on second node.

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Open cluster management console on node 1 .Let us validate our cluster configuration by clicking on

validate cluster. If there are no issues in mounting disks on nodes it will pass as shown below screen

shot.

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Run all Test as recommended in below screen shot.

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Click Finish after our cluster is being successfully validated.

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Now let us create Windows Cluster go to Windows Cluster console and click on create cluster

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Enter the nodes which we have validated earlier in cluster configuration .

Assign Windows Cluster IP address and Windows Cluster Name

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Cluster will be created.

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Now we have successfully installed cluster on two nodes as shown.

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Now go to windows cluster console to see the resources allocated to the windows cluster. Below are the

two nodes on which created windows cluster if we expand nodes section.

Click on storage to see the shared clustered disks.

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Now before we start to install windows cluster we need to install application server role on both nodes.

Select Application server role on node1 and click next.

Add required features of the server and click next.

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Click Next.

Select the Following roles Application Server Foundation and Distributed Transaction Incoming Remote

Transaction and Outgoing Remote Transaction.

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Click Next to install the above roles and features .It will install the install the above roles on node1

repeat the same step on node2.

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Now we need to add DTC service in our cluster. Follow the following steps to configure the services. Go

to cluster management console Click on add Services and applications and click on Configure a Service

application as shown.

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Click next.

Select DTC as shown and click next.

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Name this service and Client Access Point and click on next as shown.

Select the storage as allocated from the cluster disk for DTC service as shown and click next.

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Click next on the confirmation screen as shown.

It will install DTC service on your cluster.

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After Successful transaction you can see the summary of DTC service installed on your cluster.

Now we are ready to start with SQL server failover cluster installation click on the setup.exe of SQL

SERVER installation CD to start the SQL Server Installation wizard click on the NEW SQL SERVER

FAILOVER INSTALLATION AS SHOWN on node1.

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Enter the license key for SQL 2012 as required and accept the terms and conditions of Microsoft in the

next screen and click next and proceed Setup Support Roles

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Click Next to proceed to setup roles and features

Select the first option available.

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Select the following features as shown and click next.

Make sure feature rule check complete with no failed status then next.

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Name the cluster configuration and Instance root directory.

Click next after it completes Disk Space Requirements.

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Select the available storage as shown and click next as shown.

Click on the available disk as shown below.

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Specify the IP address and subnets accordingly as shown and click next.

Specify the service accounts to be associated with SQL Server use domain service accounts with admin

right and click next as shown.

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Specify credentials to login to SQL Server accordingly and click next.

Click on the data directories tab and specify database root directory and log directory accordingly.

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If u want to send error reporting to Microsoft the put a check on the check box else click next to

proceed.

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Click on install button after verifying the summary.

Now it will install SQL SERVER ON ONE NODE we will get installation summary report like this.

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We can check that we have successfully added SQL SERVER to our cluster in windows cluster

management console as shown.

Now we have successfully installed SQL Server on node1 we will install SQL server on another node i.e.

node2.Open setup.exe on node2 and click on add nodes to SQL SERVER FAILOVER CLUSTER.

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Click next and expand that setup support rules to check for any errors.

Enter the product key and accept the licensee terms accordingly and go to the cluster node

configuration.

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It will automatically show the network configuration which we configured while installing SQL SERVER

on node 1.

Configure the service accounts under the same user which we configured in node1 and click next.

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If you want to send error reports to Microsoft Click on check box or else click on next to proceed.

Click next on adds node rules as shown.

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Please have a look to summary details of your configuration before clicking on install button now.

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Now at this point we have configured SQL SERVER CLUSTER in active/passive mode on both nodes. In

this scenario when one node goes down other node comes up. Now we will add SQL SERVER REPORTING

SERVICES on these two nodes to make it highly available.

Run the below command at the Windows command prompt to start SQL Server setup on the active

node. Make sure to run this command after changing the root directory of the command prompt to the

location where you have placed the SQL Server setup files.

Setup.exe /SkipRules=StandaloneInstall_HasClusteredOrPreparedInstanceCheck /Action=Install

Now follow the same process which you normally do in an installation. Again choose the

existing instance to add SSRS and select Reporting Services in the feature selection page

which we need to install. Repeat this step on both servers.

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Configure Reporting Services on both nodes to use same database which is running on Clustered

Environment as shown.

Configure Web Service URL on both servers as shown below.

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Configure Report Server Url on both nodes.

Now go to the Scale layout deployment and join both servers.

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Now we go back to widows cluster console and configure a virtual IP for Reporting Services. This is how

it is done. Add a resource >Client Access Point.

Add the virtual IP and Instance name as shown and click next.

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Bring the resource online as shown.

Now add the dependency of this resource to SQL SERVER cluster service to make it highly available at

the time of failover.

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Now finally we are done we can test our Virtual Url on browser as shown and test it with failover also.

Now in order to deploy reports on report server we will use this following virtual ip which will deploy

reports on both nodes .http://172.16.100.207/ReportServer and make our Reporting Services highly

available as good as SQL Cluster.