Cluster Addresses

Hi,
I am a newbie to Clustering so please bear with me.
We have a db environment set up with Win 2003 and SQL 2000 connecting to a
single disk array.
The question I have is, what is the difference between the Cluster IP
Address and the SQL IP address.
What I really want to know is what is the purpose for the two different
addresses?
Thanks for any help.
JD
When you create a cluster, you start working with Virtual Servers. The
cluster itself becomes a Virtual server, as does each SQL instance you
install. Each virtual server consists of a minimum of a physical disk
resource, an IP address, and a network name. Of course, each virtual server
has other resources to make it actually do something useful. So, the
Cluster IP address is used to connect to Cluster control resources and the
SQL IP address is used to connect to SQL service resources. These addresses
are in addition to the IP addresses of the host nodes.
Geoff N. Hiten
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Senior Database Administrator
Careerbuilder.com
I support the Professional Association for SQL Server
www.sqlpass.org
"jimmy" <jimmy@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:DC5A7EF8-C516-411B-823D-BA36A6E24A85@.microsoft.com...
> Hi,
> I am a newbie to Clustering so please bear with me.
> We have a db environment set up with Win 2003 and SQL 2000 connecting to a
> single disk array.
> The question I have is, what is the difference between the Cluster IP
> Address and the SQL IP address.
> What I really want to know is what is the purpose for the two different
> addresses?
> Thanks for any help.
> JD
|||Hi Geoff,
Thanks for the explanation. We have a single application that points at the
database, so should we use the SQL IP Address to point the application at the
db server?
So from your explanaition if a file share was one of the Cluster resources
and you wanted to acces it. This is when you would use the Cluster address
to access the file share. Like so:
\\ClusterIP\FileShare
Thanks Again
JD
"Geoff N. Hiten" wrote:

> When you create a cluster, you start working with Virtual Servers. The
> cluster itself becomes a Virtual server, as does each SQL instance you
> install. Each virtual server consists of a minimum of a physical disk
> resource, an IP address, and a network name. Of course, each virtual server
> has other resources to make it actually do something useful. So, the
> Cluster IP address is used to connect to Cluster control resources and the
> SQL IP address is used to connect to SQL service resources. These addresses
> are in addition to the IP addresses of the host nodes.
> --
> Geoff N. Hiten
> Microsoft SQL Server MVP
> Senior Database Administrator
> Careerbuilder.com
> I support the Professional Association for SQL Server
> www.sqlpass.org
> "jimmy" <jimmy@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:DC5A7EF8-C516-411B-823D-BA36A6E24A85@.microsoft.com...
>
>
|||Yes, you use the SQL vurtial server IP address as the connection target.
Personally, I prefer to use the network name. That way, I can play with
Aliases and DNS records during disasters.
You shouldn't use the cluster resource group and quorum disk for anything
extra. You should create another virtual server and add the file service to
that resource group. \\FileShareVirtualServerName\ShareName
Geoff N. Hiten
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Senior Database Administrator
Careerbuilder.com
I support the Professional Association for SQL Server
www.sqlpass.org
"jimmy" <jimmy@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:641B055A-4878-4E12-AE77-DE4BFDEF3718@.microsoft.com...
> Hi Geoff,
> Thanks for the explanation. We have a single application that points at
the
> database, so should we use the SQL IP Address to point the application at
the
> db server?
> So from your explanaition if a file share was one of the Cluster resources
> and you wanted to acces it. This is when you would use the Cluster
address[vbcol=seagreen]
> to access the file share. Like so:
> \\ClusterIP\FileShare
> Thanks Again
> JD
> "Geoff N. Hiten" wrote:
server[vbcol=seagreen]
the[vbcol=seagreen]
addresses[vbcol=seagreen]
to a[vbcol=seagreen]
different[vbcol=seagreen]
|||Hi Geoff,
Thats great.
Thanks
Jamie.
"Geoff N. Hiten" wrote:

> Yes, you use the SQL vurtial server IP address as the connection target.
> Personally, I prefer to use the network name. That way, I can play with
> Aliases and DNS records during disasters.
> You shouldn't use the cluster resource group and quorum disk for anything
> extra. You should create another virtual server and add the file service to
> that resource group. \\FileShareVirtualServerName\ShareName
> --
> Geoff N. Hiten
> Microsoft SQL Server MVP
> Senior Database Administrator
> Careerbuilder.com
> I support the Professional Association for SQL Server
> www.sqlpass.org
> "jimmy" <jimmy@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:641B055A-4878-4E12-AE77-DE4BFDEF3718@.microsoft.com...
> the
> the
> address
> server
> the
> addresses
> to a
> different
>
>
|||So...
Are there any restrictions on the Cluster IP and SQL IP?
If I have an internal and external NIC, should one go on each? Can they have neighboring IPs?
The reason I ask is that I set up a new cluster with the Cluster IP on the external NIC and the SQL IP on the internal NIC. At this point everything worked fine. However the requirements changed and I changed the SQL IP from the internal NIC to the external one - with an IP contigious to the Cluster IP. Ever since, I can not get my application to connect over TCP. Sometimes the sql services will not come online either until I change the IPs back to the original settings.
I have changed the IPs both in Cluster Admin and using the SQL installer as indicated in this KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244980.
Any thoughts?