Upgrade to 2016 questions

  • as1981 - Wednesday, March 22, 2017 6:56 AM

    Hello,

    Thank you for your detailed reply.

    We are small team so we have to manage the Windows and SQL side. I am currently looking at the Windows Clustering side as well.

    Thanks

    Do you have any subject matter experts on that topic?  If not, you may want to first invest in either hiring somebody who knows about that stuff and has set it up before OR training.

    Also, another option for HA on SQL is DxEnterprise by DH2i.  I don't work for them, but have been using their tool since Polyserve was discontinued and I do recommend it.  It requires multiple windows machines to be fully efficient, but allows for service and disk failover and setup is very quick and easy.  I know when we were setting it up, we were looking at SQL enterprise (so we could have HA options) as well as windows failover clustering (also requires windows enterprise if I remember right) and DxEnterprise was a lot cheaper option.  
    If you require SSRS to be running through the failovers though, it is a bit more of a pain to set up and maitain.  I have not been successful getting SSRS to failover properly yet.

    The above is all just my opinion on what you should do. 
    As with all advice you find on a random internet forum - you shouldn't blindly follow it.  Always test on a test server to see if there is negative side effects before making changes to live!
    I recommend you NEVER run "random code" you found online on any system you care about UNLESS you understand and can verify the code OR you don't care if the code trashes your system.

  • With SQL2016 you can do Basic AGs with Standard Edition.  Clustering has been possible on Standard Edition since at least SQL2005.  

    I would aim to implement on Windows 2016.  W2012R2 seems very brittle compared to W2016, especially for clustering.  Also, W2016 has got some very good data replication built in to it, and can also exploit the latest Hyper-Convergence based hardware.

    I certainly echo bmg002's comment about getting in some expertise if HA is new to you.  There are many new and interesting ways to make your data unusable with HA, but done right it will provide a much more resilient environment than is possible without it.

    Whatever HA solution you choose, look at ongoing support as well as implementation costs.  The number of people who know AGs is large and growing all the time.  The number of people who know clustering is large but probably on the decline.  The number of people who know DxEnterprise is not many, however good the product might be.

    Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.

    When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist - Archbishop Hélder Câmara

  • All,

    Just a quick post to say thanks for everyone's help.

    The upgrade to a 2016 Basic Availability Group cluster has been done.

    It would have been a lot more difficult without the advice in this topic.

    Thanks

  • as1981 - Monday, September 25, 2017 1:35 PM

    All,

    Just a quick post to say thanks for everyone's help.

    The upgrade to a 2016 Basic Availability Group cluster has been done.

    It would have been a lot more difficult without the advice in this topic.

    Thanks

    You are very welcome!
    😎
    Best of luck!

  • This was removed by the editor as SPAM

Viewing 5 posts - 16 through 19 (of 19 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply