SQLServerCentral Syndication

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  • Build a SQL Cluster Lab Part 4

    Build a SQL Cluster Lab Part 4

    You are going to create a SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance in Part 4 of our series on how to build a SQL Cluster Lab. The FCI will only be installed on Node1 and Node2. FCIs require shared storage so you will make your domain controller an iSCSI target. Last you will create your FCI…

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  • Build a SQL Cluster Lab Part 3

    Build a SQL Cluster Lab Part 3

    You are going to create a multi-subnet Availability Group in Part 3 of our series on how to build a SQL Cluster Lab. First you give the Cluster Name Object rights in Active Directory and then install your AG. You will also ensure the AG endpoints are using the dedicated network created for them in…

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  • Build a SQL Cluster Lab Part 2

    Build a SQL Cluster Lab Part 2

    You are going to create a Windows Cluster in Part 2 of our series on how to build a SQL Cluster Lab. You will run cluster validation followed by creating the Windows Server Failover Cluster. In addition, you configure the Cluster Networks and a File Share Witness. Here are links to the other articles in…

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  • Build a SQL Cluster Lab Part 1

    Build a SQL Cluster Lab Part 1

    This article is Part 1 in a series of articles showing how to build a SQL Cluster Lab. It covers building a Windows Cluster in Hyper-V that supports both Availability Groups and Failover Cluster Instances. Once you build the environment, you can use it for training purposes, POCs, or the testing of features and functions…

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  • MSDTC Best Practices with an Availability Group

    MSDTC Best Practices with an Availability Group

    In this article we are going to look at some guidelines and MSDTC best practices with an Availability Group.  Please note that some of these recommendations change if you are deploying a Failover Cluster Instance.  If you are using the MSDTC (BizTalk, Linked Servers, etc.) and hosting the databases in an Availability Group, there are…

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  • MaxDOP Added to SQL 2019 CTP3.0 Setup

    MaxDOP Added to SQL 2019 CTP3.0 Setup

    You can now set MaxDOP during SQL 2019 CTP3.0 setup. MaxDOP is the sledge hammer to Cost Threshold’s tack hammer (also MaxDOP database scoped configuration in SQL 2017+) and getting MaxDOP set correctly can be an art that is highly dependent on your workload. However, there are some best practice guidelines we can follow. Remember…

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  • Configure SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance on Azure Virtual Machines with MSDTC

    Configure SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance on Azure Virtual Machines with MSDTC

    Configure SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance If you are running a SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance on premises and looking to migrate to Azure, you might be a little intimidated. This architecture is a bit complex because it uses quite a few different technologies all working together. My goal is to help clarify the pieces…

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  • MSDTC Supported Configurations

    MSDTC Supported Configurations

    The MSDTC Configuration Conundrum MSDTC configuration is not as straight forward as you might think.  It’s a different choice if you are using a local MSDTC, clustered MSDTC, on-premises, Azure, Failover Cluster, or Availability Group.  Every one of those variables leads you down a different path with different choices.  The goal of this article is…

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  • Read-Scale Availability Group Setup

    Read-Scale Availability Group Setup

    What is a Read-Scale Availability Group? A Read-Scale Availability Group is a Clusterless Availability Group.  It’s sole purpose and design is to scale out a read workload.  More importantly is what it is not.  It is NOT a High Availability or Disaster Recovery solution.  Since this design has no cluster under it, you lose things…

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  • Domain Independent Cluster and Availability Group

    Domain Independent Cluster and Availability Group

    What is a Domain Independent Cluster? Did you know that you can have a Windows cluster that is a domain independent cluster and run a SQL Server Availability Group on top of it?  The technology has been around for a while, but a lot of DBAs are not aware of it.  Why?  All the glory…

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  • Verify Allocation Unit Size for SQL Server

    Verify Allocation Unit Size for SQL Server

    Why Do I Care? Everything in SQL Server is stored on disk in 8K pages.  The Microsoft recommended best practice is to format using a 64K allocation unit size.  Processes such as the checkpoint and Lazy Writer try to write in extents when possible.  Extents are a collection of 8 pages and since each page…

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