minimal hardware for building testing failover clustering for SQL

Hi,
I am trying to practice to build a failover clustering for SQL 2000. Does
anyone know the minimal hardware request for a testing clutering? thank you
for your help.
Best Regards,
Lynn
Lynn,
For testing purposes, you may find this useful
Using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 to Create and Configure a Two-Node Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Cluster
This guide provides step-by-step instructions for using Virtual Server 2005 to create and configure a two-node server cluster.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...y/cvs2005.mspx
If you do not want to install virtual server and want to build using minimum hardware, long ago I had build a two node cluster using two laptops with SCSI card and one
SCSI disk and a cross-over cable. This is the bare minimum. I also was able to install SQL Server 2000 clustered instance on this bare min cluster. It worked and was good
for testing but NOT supported and also it did not work sometimes as expected. Ofcourse, I would not do this for a real test cluster or dev cluster.
Best Regards,
Uttam Parui
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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Min & Max Memory in 2005

Is there a best practice for setting the Minimum and Maximum Memory settings
in SQL Server 2005 on a dedicated SQL Server machine. With SQL Server 2000
we set the minimum and maximum memory to be the same value on our large
clustered SQL Server machines. This seemed to work very well. Is the same
true for 2005?
My experience so far has been you should at least set the max server
memory if you are beyond 2GB range, regardless of x86 or x64.
Note...if you are running x64 and have more than once instance, you
will also should to set it for ALL instances if you have more than one
on the box (or cluster in an active/active situation)...otherwise, the
most greedy instance wins out, creating memory pressure on the OS as
well...or so it goes from my experience. SQL will give up memory when
it recieves the out memory messages from the OS, but in the few times
I tested it during our initial deployment, the memory starvation of
one instance created massive slow downs in performance.
On Jun 15, 9:44 am, "Cgal" <cgalle...@.newsgroups.nospam> wrote:
> Is there a best practice for setting the Minimum and Maximum Memory settings
> in SQL Server 2005 on a dedicated SQL Server machine. With SQL Server 2000
> we set the minimum and maximum memory to be the same value on our large
> clustered SQL Server machines. This seemed to work very well. Is the same
> true for 2005?
|||Setting the min and max to the same basically fixes your memory at that
point and doesn't leave room for the OS to share if needed. In general leave
the min at 0 (default) and set the MAX to a value to always leave some for
the OS. Most systems will work fine with MAX at the default if you are not
using AWE but there may be times when you simply want to leave x amount of
memory for the OS and any other apps running on the server. If you are using
AWE and 32 bit you must set it to some value less than MAX because it is not
dynamic and will starve the OS.How much you leave depends on how much you
have and what you are doing.
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
"Cgal" <cgallelli@.newsgroups.nospam> wrote in message
news:%23AqYlN1rHHA.4768@.TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Is there a best practice for setting the Minimum and Maximum Memory
> settings in SQL Server 2005 on a dedicated SQL Server machine. With SQL
> Server 2000 we set the minimum and maximum memory to be the same value on
> our large clustered SQL Server machines. This seemed to work very well.
> Is the same true for 2005?
>

Min & Max Memory in 2005

Is there a best practice for setting the Minimum and Maximum Memory settings
in SQL Server 2005 on a dedicated SQL Server machine. With SQL Server 2000
we set the minimum and maximum memory to be the same value on our large
clustered SQL Server machines. This seemed to work very well. Is the same
true for 2005?My experience so far has been you should at least set the max server
memory if you are beyond 2GB range, regardless of x86 or x64.
Note...if you are running x64 and have more than once instance, you
will also should to set it for ALL instances if you have more than one
on the box (or cluster in an active/active situation)...otherwise, the
most greedy instance wins out, creating memory pressure on the OS as
well...or so it goes from my experience. SQL will give up memory when
it recieves the out memory messages from the OS, but in the few times
I tested it during our initial deployment, the memory starvation of
one instance created massive slow downs in performance.
On Jun 15, 9:44 am, "Cgal" <cgalle...@.newsgroups.nospam> wrote:
> Is there a best practice for setting the Minimum and Maximum Memory settings
> in SQL Server 2005 on a dedicated SQL Server machine. With SQL Server 2000
> we set the minimum and maximum memory to be the same value on our large
> clustered SQL Server machines. This seemed to work very well. Is the same
> true for 2005?|||Setting the min and max to the same basically fixes your memory at that
point and doesn't leave room for the OS to share if needed. In general leave
the min at 0 (default) and set the MAX to a value to always leave some for
the OS. Most systems will work fine with MAX at the default if you are not
using AWE but there may be times when you simply want to leave x amount of
memory for the OS and any other apps running on the server. If you are using
AWE and 32 bit you must set it to some value less than MAX because it is not
dynamic and will starve the OS.How much you leave depends on how much you
have and what you are doing.
--
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
"Cgal" <cgallelli@.newsgroups.nospam> wrote in message
news:%23AqYlN1rHHA.4768@.TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Is there a best practice for setting the Minimum and Maximum Memory
> settings in SQL Server 2005 on a dedicated SQL Server machine. With SQL
> Server 2000 we set the minimum and maximum memory to be the same value on
> our large clustered SQL Server machines. This seemed to work very well.
> Is the same true for 2005?
>

Min & Max Memory in 2005

Is there a best practice for setting the Minimum and Maximum Memory settings
in SQL Server 2005 on a dedicated SQL Server machine. With SQL Server 2000
we set the minimum and maximum memory to be the same value on our large
clustered SQL Server machines. This seemed to work very well. Is the same
true for 2005?My experience so far has been you should at least set the max server
memory if you are beyond 2GB range, regardless of x86 or x64.
Note...if you are running x64 and have more than once instance, you
will also should to set it for ALL instances if you have more than one
on the box (or cluster in an active/active situation)...otherwise, the
most greedy instance wins out, creating memory pressure on the OS as
well...or so it goes from my experience. SQL will give up memory when
it recieves the out memory messages from the OS, but in the few times
I tested it during our initial deployment, the memory starvation of
one instance created massive slow downs in performance.
On Jun 15, 9:44 am, "Cgal" <cgalle...@.newsgroups.nospam> wrote:
> Is there a best practice for setting the Minimum and Maximum Memory settin
gs
> in SQL Server 2005 on a dedicated SQL Server machine. With SQL Server 200
0
> we set the minimum and maximum memory to be the same value on our large
> clustered SQL Server machines. This seemed to work very well. Is the sam
e
> true for 2005?|||Setting the min and max to the same basically fixes your memory at that
point and doesn't leave room for the OS to share if needed. In general leave
the min at 0 (default) and set the MAX to a value to always leave some for
the OS. Most systems will work fine with MAX at the default if you are not
using AWE but there may be times when you simply want to leave x amount of
memory for the OS and any other apps running on the server. If you are using
AWE and 32 bit you must set it to some value less than MAX because it is not
dynamic and will starve the OS.How much you leave depends on how much you
have and what you are doing.
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
"Cgal" <cgallelli@.newsgroups.nospam> wrote in message
news:%23AqYlN1rHHA.4768@.TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Is there a best practice for setting the Minimum and Maximum Memory
> settings in SQL Server 2005 on a dedicated SQL Server machine. With SQL
> Server 2000 we set the minimum and maximum memory to be the same value on
> our large clustered SQL Server machines. This seemed to work very well.
> Is the same true for 2005?
>