Hi list,

We're doing tests on SQL Server 2000 in a two-machine fail-over cluster. We
have a basic single-instance configuration working fine, failing over as
expected.

We want to try "pseudo-active/active", i.e. have an instance running on each
server, each able to pick up the workload of the other node in case of
failover. This configuration is supported, but very poorly documented. I
have not been able to find a single specific "how to" resource (on the
Internet at least), for installing multiple instances. Any suggestions?

The specific installation difficulty we have run into : Today we are trying
to install a second named instance. We have clustered disk resources
available, distinct from the resources the first instance is running on. We
have a name and an IP for the second virtual server (each instance is a
virtual SQL server, in this configuration).

We are installing onto the active node of the cluster, which currently owns
the quorum drive and all of the cluster's resources. We'll worry about
pushing the instance over to the other node once we've got it running.

Running SQL Server install, after entering all the setup information, and
after several minutes of waiting (message "Sql Server is updating all the
nodes of the cluster" or similar), we get a message
"The install program was not able to perform the required operations on the
nodes of the cluster", or words to that effect, and the installation backs
itself out.

I have been able to find no trace of what the real problem is, no errors in
the machine logs, I am completely clueless. I have no idea why I can't
install the second instance, since we didn't have this problem with the
first one.

Any ideas?


Alistair Connor
Ext/Astek
DBA Sql Server
tél 598131

MS Sql Server LazyDBA home page