Microsoft Private Cloud- Making It Real !!: Virtual Machine Manager 2012 vs SQL Server 2012 Always On

One of the new features in Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 CTP2 is the support of SQL Server 2012.

This post will try to cover the setup of Virtual Machine Manager in setup with no single point of failure , using Virtual Machine Manager HA and SQL Server 2012 Always On Availability Groups

This post is spawned from a idea and is far from a validated setup , there is from what I can find no official word on SQL Server 2012 Always On Support in Virtual Machine Manager , this setup will also require SQL Enterprise Edition so skipping from the free SQL Standard Edition that “follows” the new system center licensing.

The purpose of this test is to enable Virtual Machine Manager to run on SQL 2012 Always On databases with no shared storage

This post is very long sorry but I voted against splitting it up so bear with me

I am not a SQL Expert so feel free to comment on any mistakes on the way , there is no heartbeat network or replication network everything is running off the same nic nothing that would be a option on real production

On the two nodes install failover clustering and create a new cluster

During this setup I used VMMDB I would use a different name as VMMDB is being used for database access , so I would use VMMDBCLU or something like that and then setup a dns entry for VMMDB to point to the cluster IP address

Again use VMMDBCLU and setup a dns entry with VMMDB to point to the IP Address

After the cluster install SQL 2012 Enterprise Edition , do NOT use the “SQL Failover Cluster” just use the standalone installer

For VMM select SQL Server Feature Installation

Database Engine and Management Tools

As this is for testing just throw the database at the default location

And enter a service account for SQL

And set Collation just to be sure

Add the VMM service Account and VMM Database Account

Again use VMMDBCLU for Windows Failover ClusterName

This is the first part of the SQL Installation

To prepare for VMM installation create a container for VMM Configuration data

Delegate Full Control to the VMM service account

As VMM is being installed on Windows Server 2012 we need to install Windows Assessment and Deployment kit instead of WAIK , this step needs to be completed on both servers needed for Virtual Machine Manager HA

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=29929

Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows® 8 Release Preview

Select deployment tools and Windows PE

This takes a while Smile

(http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=253555

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Native Client

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Command Line Utilities

Install SQL Server 2012 Native and Command Line Utilities , this step needs to be completed on both servers needed for Virtual Machine Manager HA

After completing the prereqs start the installer on the first VMM server

Select Management Server and Console

Select VMMDB as SQL Server (through our dns entry) and create a new database

Add the service account , this must be local administrator on both VMM servers , and Store my keys in active directory

Add Library Path

Repeat on 2nd VMM Server

Select VMMDB and existing database

Enter Service Account

In order to prepare for the SQL Availability Group we need to create a fileshare where the SQL Service account can access the database backup needed to setup initial replication

Virtual Machine Manager database is pr default in simple mode , for SQL Replication to work we need to change it to FulL Logging , after changing the database we need to create a full backup of the database

Start the New Availability Group Wizard

Set a name for the Availability Group

Select the VirtualManagerDB that Virtual Machine Manager uses

Select Automatic Failover and Synchronous , this will commit on both servers so there is no data loss if one servers hardware fails , and Automatic Failover will ensure that the systems are unaffected