cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Un-clustering a simple 2 node SQL cluster

krash
Level 3

Can anyone point me in the direction of some good articles or info on removing clustering all together.  Here is our setup, 2 physical nodes, SFHA 5.1 SP2, 2008 enterprise 64bit, SQL 2005.  We just don't need the clustering component anymore and are looking to actually virtualize this workload at some point as well. 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

We would uninstall Symantec storage foundation,...

Careful! You will not be able to access the data on the SF volumes.

You will need to copy the data off the disks before uninstalling (with SQL shut down) or restore data from backup.

See https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/migrating-veritas-storage-foundation-volume-windows-d...  

View solution in original post

11 REPLIES 11

Gaurav_S
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

Hi,

You can find the information in install guide ,refer below

http://static-sort.symanteccloud.com/public/documents/sfha/5.1sp2/windows/productguides/pdf/VCS_InstallUpgrade.pdf

 

G

RiaanBadenhorst
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified
  1. Offline the service group
  2. Delete the service group
  3. Use the configuration wizard to delete the cluster.
  4. Import the diskgroups, mount the volumes, and copy/backup your data databases

Note, virtualization is not going to give you HA. So we assume that you deem these SQL databases are not mission critical and you can tolerate failure. VMware HA is not HA, it just provides failover in case of ESX failures. If you feel that the FULL vcs stack is a bit too much for your environment you might consider ApplicationHA from Symantec (http://www.symantec.com/application-ha) it can monitor and restart the databases so you at least have some level of protection for them.

krash
Level 3

Thanks for the responses.  We plan to continue using one of the cluster nodes and then doing a P2V to convert it to a virtual server.  The customer is not 100% sure what runs everywhere so I'm trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.  Here are my main concerns.

What needs to be done to the SQL server after removing clustering, just renaming the instance?

We would uninstall Symantec storage foundation, enterprise administrator, and Veritas cluster server.  Does anyone see any issues with mounting the SAN disks that were previously managed and signatured by EA? 

 

 

RiaanBadenhorst
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Do you only want to remove it from one of the nodes in the 2 node cluster?

krash
Level 3

We are getting rid of both physical servers so remove or just turn off the second node and format it.  Either way we'd like to convert this to a VM preserving the entire OS/system but just remove the clustering and disk managment software.

 

 

RiaanBadenhorst
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Ok, you can follow this process

  1. Offline the service group
  2. Delete the service group
  3. Use the configuration wizard to remove one node from the cluster.
  4. Then you should use the configuration wizard and reconfigure the cluster to not use LLT. Configure it as a one node. It wont use LLT/GAB and the private heart beat NICs. The reason for this is that if you P2V it, the LLT config that is there now, will get messed up (and you don't need it for a single node).
  5. You dont need to do anything to the SQL installation.

Hope that helps.

 

Alternatively, you can install SF + SQL in the VM (after step 3) and then just create a cluster between the physical and the virtual. But this is more work but safer. I'm not sure what else mght go wrong in a P2V.

krash
Level 3

OK, so we've done a P2V and have a server we can test with.  We would like to keep the server off the network while we remove the cluster software but HAD and VCSComm services won't start so it won't allow me to bring up the cluster monitor to delete the service group.

Any suggestions for deleting a SG from a server that is offline, and/or something that will allow me to uninstall SFHA?

RiaanBadenhorst
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Did you follow the steps i put up?

krash
Level 3

I would but you can't bring up cluster manager to do those steps.  This is production so we are doing the test on a P2V image of the server first. 

I'd like to remove the software completely and was hoping they have a /c (clean) switch during the uninstall, but I'm not finding anything.

 

 

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

We would uninstall Symantec storage foundation,...

Careful! You will not be able to access the data on the SF volumes.

You will need to copy the data off the disks before uninstalling (with SQL shut down) or restore data from backup.

See https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/migrating-veritas-storage-foundation-volume-windows-d...  

krash
Level 3

OK thank you for this extremely important fact that I did not realize!  This will put a dent in our plans to remove the cluster/SF/EA software.  It does appear to run OK with the cluster services disabled, although not the optimal solution, but neither is P2V'ing any production server IMHO.