October 9, 2008 at 4:29 am
Hi sql server experts..
I need some help, hope u can answer it..
I want to cluster my servers and load-balancing them using SQL Server 2005. (Software load balancing)
Do the servers have to be identical (same type in processor, RAM, motherboard, etc) ? Or they can be all kind of Server type.
And, can I really load-balancing the data flow between multiple servers using SQLserver 2005 ?
Every comments is appreciated
Thx for taking a look
🙂
October 9, 2008 at 5:13 am
How are you planning to load balance 2 SQL server databases? (Or have I misunderstood your question)
Clustering isn't for load-balancing. It's for high-availability.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
October 9, 2008 at 8:56 am
Sorry if I make u confused
Ok don't mention about Clustering or High availability..
I just want to load-balancing my 2 servers, so that they can share same database content and split the coming requests.
Can SQL 2005 actually do this ? And do my 2 servers need to be identical ?
Every comment is appreciated
Thx
October 9, 2008 at 10:32 am
williamaffandi (10/9/2008)
I just want to load-balancing my 2 servers, so that they can share same database content and split the coming requests.Can SQL 2005 actually do this ? And do my 2 servers need to be identical ?
Not directly. You cannot have two servers sharing the same DB files. There's no mechanism in SQL that allows for splitting up of incoming requests.
What you can do is to implement peer-to-peer replication. That means you will have two separate servers with two completely separate copies of the database on. The replication will copy changes from one to the other with a small latency. Your app will have to do the splitting up of requests though.
If the system is read-heavy, this may give you performance gains. If the DB is frequently updated, then the replication will be doing a great deal of work keeping the 2 DBs in sync and may degrade performance.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
October 9, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Waow, I really learn a lot from ur words.. Thx
So the only thing I can implement with SQL, is to have 2 Server and 2 separate DBs and do some replication between them right ?
Then I think I can have 2 different specs of PC to do this, am I right ? no need to be identical ?
Added question if u don't mind :
I heard there are some Switch/Hub that can do load-balancing by splitting the request coming in to several SQL Servers, do u have any idea ?
Multiple USers -> 1 Switch -> 2 Servers load balanced
Every comment is appreciated again
Thx
October 10, 2008 at 2:08 am
No idea about the switch.
Why are you looking to load balance SQL Server? App servers or web servers load balance well and easily. It's not something that's generally done with database servers except perhaps at the very, very high end (Oracle RAC)
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
October 10, 2008 at 7:37 am
As with any plan you need to decisively come up with what you are trying to do.
If you are looking to split the load for performance reasons, there are easier ways to correct poorly performing SQL servers than "load balancing".
If you are looking to build an environment to handle a huge amount of activity then you might have more than one app/web server.
We have a little of everything, the single MSSQL server, multiple MSSQL servers (split data) and a SAN attached 4 node Oracle RAC with 2 standbys.
The single SQL box has one web server as well as the split DB boxes, but the RAC has 4 app servers and 2 web servers.
Whew, With that said there is a way to do just about anything. It just takes time/money.
To answer the question more directly: No, you don't need exact hardware to do a split data config.
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