Module 7: SQL Server Special Considerations

1
Module 7 SQL Server Special Considerations
2
Overview

• SQL Server High Availability
• Unicode

3
Lesson SQL Server High Availability

• Designing for High Availability (HA)
• Where to Start?
• OS options for SQL Server
• SQL Server High Availability
• Windows Clustering Terminology
• Cluster Resource Dependencies
• Troubleshooting
• SQL Server HA information

4
Designing for High Availability (HA)

• HA is about people and processes technology is
  just the enabler
• Understand the level of HA expected so you can
  focus
• 99.999 5 minutes per year 98 7.3 days per year
• 99.99 53 minutes per year 97 11 days per year
• 99.9 8.8 hours per year 95 18.3 days per year
• 99 3.6 days per year 90 36.5 days per year
• Identify risks and exposures, and understand
  tradeoffs
• Review all single points of failure
• Redundancy is crucial, but dont forget plans for
  contingency/disasters

5
Where to Start?

• What is the level of HA expected?
• Configure enough processing power to handle the
  workload after a failover.
• Use compatible hardware. Entire cluster solution
  must be in the Windows Catalog or on the former
  Hardware Compatibility List (HCL).
• Use only certified drivers. Crucial for disk
  devices
• Use the right version of the OS
• Use the right version of SQL Server
• Goal is to have a supported and known
  configuration
• Check for best practices. Look for White Papers
  on networking, configuration, etc.

6
OS options for SQL Server

• Windows 2000 Advanced Server. Max 8 Processors.
  Max 8 Gb Memory.
• Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. Max 32
  Processors. Max 32 Gb Memory.
• Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition. Max 8
  Processors. Max 32 Gb Memory (32-bit) or Max 64
  Gb Memory (64-bit).
• Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition. Min 8
  Processors and Max 64 Processors. Max 64 Gb
  Memory (32-bit) or Max 512 Gb Memory (64-bit).

7
SQL Server High Availability

• Failover clustering. Automatic. Great for close
  distances
• Log Shipping. Manual/Scheduled. OK for some
  levels of HA. Great for disaster recovery or
  spanning distances
• Native SQL Server Replication. Not an option
  unless applying schema changes outside of Siebel
  Tools
• Backup and Restore
• Always test your backups!
• Coordinate with backup/restore of Siebel File
  System

8
Windows Clustering Terminology
9
Cluster Resource Dependencies

• SQL Server resources in a Cluster are dependent
  on other resources to run
• Resources start in a particular order based on
  defined dependencies
• Unless absolutely necessary, do not add resources
  as dependencies to the SQL Server resources. May
  cause an outage that has no relation to SQL Server

10
Troubleshooting

• Diagnose in this order every time
• Hardware issues
• OS issues
• Networking issues
• Security issues
• Windows Server cluster issues
• SQL Server issues
• Most problems are not related to SQL Server

11
SQL Server HA information

• SQL Server 2000 High Availability. 754 pages.
  Book is published by Microsoft Press.
• SQL Server 2000 Failover Clustering.
  http//www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2
  000/maintain/failclus.mspx
• Cluster Services in Windows Server 2003.
  http//www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windo
  wsserver2003/technologies/clustering/default.mspx
  

12
Lesson Unicode

• Unicode Terminology
• Unicode and Localization
• Unicode, SQL Server, and Siebel

13
Unicode Terminology
Data in a database is stored as a sequence of
bytes (numbers).
14
Unicode and Localization

• Unicode is the storage of the data, whereas
  Localization is the display/usage of the data
• Localization is a set of rules or processes
  guiding how locale-sensitive data is interpreted
  when input by a user and how such data is
  presented to the user.
• USA 10/20/2004 23033 pm
• Germany 2004/10/20 143033

15
Unicode, SQL Server, and Siebel

• Obtain the latest version of the Release Notes
  and Supported Platforms documents from Siebel
• Obtain Global Deployment Guide from Siebel
  Bookshelf
• Support for Unicode will depend on your version
  of the Siebel product
• Siebel requires SQL Server to use its UCS2
  (Unicode) code page for a Unicode implementation
• UCS2 is a true double-byte code page
• SQL Server database size will double if
  converting from 1252 to UCS2

16
Review

• SQL Server High Availability
• Unicode