June 18, 2012 at 8:40 pm
Hi,
I am going to build a 4 node cluster and will put few instances SQL Server EE on it. I will also need some Standard Edition ones, but since Standard Edition only supports two node cluster, would it still be possible to install it on a four node cluster and just limit Standard Edition instaces by two nodes?
Another option, build two node cluster, install Standard Editon instances on it and then add two more nodes to the cluster and install Enterprise Edition instances.
Thanks.
June 19, 2012 at 1:00 am
My first thought, is why do you want to do this? As the servers already are licensed for enterprise edition, and assuming that you have license for all the nodes, you can add extra instances at no extra cost. The only reason I could possibly see, is a test, QA or development environment, but I would not place them in a production cluster anyway.
As for your question, I don't know whether the two-node limitation is actually enforced or not.
June 19, 2012 at 9:05 pm
okbangas (6/19/2012)
My first thought, is why do you want to do this? As the servers already are licensed for enterprise edition, and assuming that you have license for all the nodes, you can add extra instances at no extra cost. The only reason I could possibly see, is a test, QA or development environment, but I would not place them in a production cluster anyway.As for your question, I don't know whether the two-node limitation is actually enforced or not.
Just to save on licences. I spoke to Microsoft licencing specialist and he told me that as long as you set affinity to certain CPUs for both EE and SE, you only pay for those CPUs/Cores. So lets say I have 100 cores on the cluster and assign 40 cores to EE instances and 60 to SE instances, then I am going to pay accordingly.
Also I don't want to setup additional cluster for SE instances, as this means greater performance degradation should one node fail.
June 20, 2012 at 7:16 am
Roust_m (6/18/2012)
but since Standard Edition only supports two node cluster, would it still be possible to install it on a four node cluster and just limit Standard Edition instaces by two nodes?
Yes you can, although as okbangas says, can't work out why!
okbangas (6/19/2012)
As for your question, I don't know whether the two-node limitation is actually enforced or not.
Yes, it is!
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"Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉
June 20, 2012 at 7:17 am
Roust_m (6/19/2012)
Just to save on licences. I spoke to Microsoft licencing specialist and he told me that as long as you set affinity to certain CPUs for both EE and SE, you only pay for those CPUs/Cores. So lets say I have 100 cores on the cluster and assign 40 cores to EE instances and 60 to SE instances, then I am going to pay accordingly.
ok, that's a valid reason
Roust_m (6/19/2012)
Also I don't want to setup additional cluster for SE instances, as this means greater performance degradation should one node fail.
What on earth makes you think that? It's no different to any other node failure in a cluster, the instance will restart on a partner node. Where do you see the performance degradation?
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"Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉
June 20, 2012 at 5:36 pm
Perry Whittle (6/20/2012)What on earth makes you think that? It's no different to any other node failure in a cluster, the instance will restart on a partner node. Where do you see the performance degradation?
If a node failes in a four node cluster you loose 25% of capacity, if a node failes in a two node cluster you loose 50% of the capacity.
June 21, 2012 at 12:22 am
Roust_m (6/20/2012)
Perry Whittle (6/20/2012)If a node failes in a four node cluster you loose 25% of capacity, if a node failes in a two node cluster you loose 50% of the capacity.
Well, that depends on the configuration of your cluster and what part of your system is limiting the performance.
June 21, 2012 at 12:45 am
Roust_m (6/20/2012)
Perry Whittle (6/20/2012)What on earth makes you think that? It's no different to any other node failure in a cluster, the instance will restart on a partner node. Where do you see the performance degradation?
If a node failes in a four node cluster you loose 25% of capacity, if a node failes in a two node cluster you loose 50% of the capacity.
That's not how it works, it's not load balancing it's failover. With more nodes you are simply decreasing the risk of a hardware failure causing a permanent outage. If both nodes in a 2 node cluster die you have no SQL server instance. If 2 nodes of a 4 node cluster die you still have online resources.
Now, running all resources on one or two nodes may not be ideal and performance may be impacted there, it all depends how many resources you have online and how you manage them. Your primary goal is to protect against hardware failure that is what failover clusters are for.
Take a simple 2 node cluster with 1 instance of SQL server. If a node dies I haven't lost 50% of capacity since the instance only consumed 1 node in the first place, it'll restart on the partner with exactly the same capacity as the dead node.
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"Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉
June 22, 2012 at 3:25 am
Perry Whittle (6/20/2012)
Roust_m (6/18/2012)
but since Standard Edition only supports two node cluster, would it still be possible to install it on a four node cluster and just limit Standard Edition instaces by two nodes?Yes you can, although as okbangas says, can't work out why!
okbangas (6/19/2012)
As for your question, I don't know whether the two-node limitation is actually enforced or not.Yes, it is!
What version of SQL - I don't think that you get away with setting affinity on SQL 2012 (maybe 2008 R2 as well). It works of the number of physical cores (2012) or sockets (2008R2) on the box.
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