Replicating a 2-node SQL Server 2012/2014 Standard Edition Cluster to a 3rd Server for Disaster Recovery

February 25, 2016March 4, 2016 daveberm2 Comments

Many people have found themselves settling for SQL Server Standard Edition due to the cost of SQL Server Enterprise Edition. SQL Server Standard Edition has many of the same features, but has a few limitations. One limitation is that it does not support AlwaysOn Availability Groups. Also, it only supports two nodes in a cluster. With Database Mirroring being deprecated and only supporting synchronous replication in Standard Edition, you really have limited disaster recovery options.

One of those options is SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition. DataKeeper will work with your existing shared storage cluster and allow you to extend it to a 3^rd node using either synchronous or asynchronous replication. If you are using SQL Server Enterprise you can simply add that 3^rd node as another cluster member and you have a true multisite cluster. However, since we are talking about SQL Server Standard Edition you can’t add a 3^rd node directly to the cluster. The good news is that DataKeeper will allow you to replicate data to a 3^rd node so your data is protected.

Recovery in the event of a disaster simply means you are going to use DataKeeper to bring that 3^rd node online as the source of the mirror and then use SQL Server Management Studio to mount the databases that are on the replicated volumes. You clients will also need to be redirected to this 3^rd node, but it is a very cost effective solution with an excellent RPO and reasonable RTO.

The SIOS documentation talks about how to do this, but I have summarized the steps recently for one of my clients.

Configuration

Stop the SQL Resource
Remove the Physical Disk Resource From The SQL Cluster Resource
Remove the Physical Disk from Available Storage
Online Physical Disk on SECONDARY server, add the drive letter (if not there)
Run emcmd . setconfiguration <drive letter> 256
and Reboot Secondary Server. This will cause the SECONDARY server to block access to the E drive which is important because you don’t want two servers having access to the E drive at the same time if you can avoid it.
Online the disk on PRIMARY server
Add the Drive letter if needed
Create a DataKeeper Mirror from Primary to DR
You may have to wait a minute for the E drive to appear available in the DataKeeper Server Overview Report on all the servers before you can create the mirror properly. If done properly you will create a mirror from PRIMARY to DR and as part of that process DataKeeper will ask you about the SECONDARY server which shares the volume you are replicating.

In the event of a disaster….

On DR Node

Run EMCMD . switchovervolume <drive letter>
The first time make sure the SQL Service account has read/write access to all data and log files. You WILL have to explicitly grant this access the very first time you try to mount the databases.
Use SQL Management Studio to mount the databases
Redirect all clients to the server in the DR site, or better yet have the applications that reside in the DR site pre-configured to point to the SQL Server instance in the DR site.

After disaster is over

Power the servers (PRIMAY, SECONDARY) in the main site back on
Wait for mirror to reach mirroring state
Determine which node was previous source (run PowerShell as an administrator)
get-clusterresource -Name “<DataKeeper Volume Resource name>” | get-clusterparameter
Make sure no DataKeeper Volume Resources are online in the cluster
Start the DataKeeper GUI on one cluster node. Resolve any split brain conditions (most likely there are none) ensuring the DR node is selected as the source during any split-brain recovery procedures
On the node that was reported as the previous source run EMCMD . switchovervolume <drive letter>
Bring SQL Server online in Failover Cluster Manager

The above steps assume you have SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition installed on all three servers (PRIMARY, SECONDARY, DR) and that PRIMARY and SECONDARY are a two node shared storage cluster and you are replicating data to DR which is just a standalone SQL Server instance (not part of the cluster) with just local attached storage. The DR Server will have a volume(s) that is the same size and drive letter as the shared cluster volume(s). This works rather well and will even let you replicate to a target that is in the cloud if you don’t have your own DR site configured.

You can also build the same configuration using all replicated storage if you want to eliminate the SAN completely.

Here is a nice short video that illustrates the some of the possible configurations. http://videos.us.sios.com/medias/aula05u2fl

“BadRequest: The virtual network Public-Azure-East does not exist” the virtual network name displayed in the portal can be wrong #azure #azureclassic

February 8, 2016February 9, 2016 davebermLeave a comment

Today I had to help a customer trying to deploy some VMs in Azure Classic that have two NIC cards. No problem I say, it’s been a while since I worked with Azure Classic but from what I recall it was pretty straight forward, but had to be done via PowerShell as there is not GUI option in the portal for deploying two NICs.

The basic directions can be found here.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-networks-multiple-nics/

However, after banging my head against the wall for a few hours I stumble across this nugget of information.

https://thelonedba.wordpress.com/2015/07/17/new-azurevm-badrequest-the-virtual-network-foo-does-not-exist

It seems like what the Azure Portal GUI says the name of your virtual network is can sometime be completely different than the actual name which is returned when you run Get-AzureVMNetSite | Select Name. As you can see in the screen shots below the Virtual Network that I created called “Public-Azure-East” is actually called “Group Group Azure Public East”. How that happened and why the GUI displays the wrong name is beyond my comprehension.

As you can see, my feeble attempts at creating the virtual machine failed, saying “BadRequest: The virtual network Public-Azure-East does not exist.” I was sure it had something to do with the multiple subscriptions I use, but it turned out to be this bug where the Azure Portal Displays the name I used in creating the Virtual Network, however the actual name is something completely different.

Why something so simple as creating a VM with two NICs can’t be accomplished via the GUI is another story completely.

Changing the Default Search Provider in Internet Explorer 11 from Bing to Google #IE11 #Google #Bing

February 8, 2016 daveberm9 Comments

For those of you who still use IE 11 from time to time, you may have noticed that with a recent update your default search provider may have been changed to Bing. Microsoft has made a security enhancement that stops malicious software from hijacking your browser by changing the default search engine and home page. Being the dad of two teenage “gamers” who are always on the verge of downloading the latest malware I do appreciate the added security. However, one of the side “benefits” of this security update is that the default search provider is now Bing and how to change it back to Google in not 100% obvious. Microsoft posts the steps in their article here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/internet-explorer-11-settings-protection

As much as I love Microsoft products I just never find Bing very friendly for the types of searching I do which is generally looking for some very specific technical content. I think Bing might be consumer friendly, but Google wins the search engine wars in finding the content I am looking for quickly.

To change the default search engine provider back to Google, just follow the steps in the article. The screen shots below show the steps.

Clustering For Mere Mortals

Microsoft Cloud and Datacenter MVP David Bermingham's thoughts and advice on Windows clustering and other related technologies

Month: February 2016