HOW-TO: MIGRATE MS SQL CLUSTER TO A NEW SANMi

How-To: Migrate MS SQL Cluster to a New SAN | Justin’s IT Blog // //

Posted by Justin Paul on July 17, 2012

During a recent SAN installation I ran into a Microsoft SQL cluster that needed to be migrated from an old SAN to a new SAN. After doing a bunch of reading and testing I developed the plan listed below. As it turned out the cluster that needed to be migrated was using shared VMDK files instead of RDM’s so I was able to just migrate the VMDK’s but I thought I would share the plan for migrating a cluster using RDM disks just in case someone else runs into this situation.

Part 1. Present the new LUNs

Because the SQL servers are virtual machines using RDM’s I needed to create 3 new LUNs on the new SAN and present them to the VMware servers. These three LUNs would be used for: 1. Cluster Quorum Disk 2. MSDTC Disk 3. SQL Data Disk. I wont dive deep into this step as it would be different for each SAN vendor, but in summary, create your new LUNs as needed and add them to the storage group that is presented to your VMware hosts, after that rescan all of your VMware HBA’s and verify that the VMware hosts can see the LUNs.

Part 2. Add New RDM’s to Primary Cluster Node

Next we will add each of the new RDM Disks to our primary cluster node. Technically we would not have to mount them to the primary node, but I’m doing it that way just to keep things organized. Here are the steps for this section:

1. Open Edit Settings of Node 1
2. Click Add, then Select Disk
3. Pick Raw Device Map as the new disk type
4. Select the Raw LUN that you want to use
5. Tell it to store the information about the RDM with the VM
6. Select Physical Compatibility Mode
7. Select a Virtual SCSI Node device that is unused (And is on a controller that is in physical mode)
8. Complete the Wizard
9. Repeat Steps 2 – 8 to add the number of new RDM’s you will need
10. Now click ok on the edit settings box to commit the changes
11. After committing, go back into Edit Settings of node 1 and look to see what the file name is for the RDM’s (mine were SQL1_6.vmdk and SQL1_7.vmdk, we will need these to configure node 2)

Part 3. Add Existing RDM’s to Secondary Cluster Node

1. Open Edit Settings of Node 2
2. Click Add, then Select Disk
3. Pick Existing Virtual Disk as the disk type
4. Browse to where the config files or Node 1 are on the SAN and select the VMDK file that you made note of in step 10 in Part 2
5. Select a Virtual SCSI Node device that is unused (And is on a controller that is in physical mode, should probably be the same as the first node)
6. Complete the Wizard
7. Repeat steps 2 – 6 for the remaining RDM’s that you need to add to the second node
8. Now click ok on the edit settings box to commit the changes

Part 4. Preparing the new RDM’s in Windows

Note: these steps are preformed only one node 1

1. Open Disk Management and Rescan the server for new disks
2. Right click on the first new drive and select “Online”
3. Right click again on the first new disk and select “Initialize”
4. Now right click in the right area of the first new disk and pick “Create Volume”
5. Complete the new volume wizard and assign a temporary drive letter
6. Repeat Step 2 – 5 for each new drive

Part 5. Add the new drives to the cluster

1. Open “Failover Cluster Manager”
2. Expand out the cluster you are working on and select the Storage item in the left tree.
3. On the right click Add a Disk
4. Make sure there are check marks beside all of the new drives you wish to add as a cluster disk
5. Click OK
6. Verify that the new disks now appear under Available Storage in the middle column

Part 6. Move the Cluster Quorum Disk

1. Open “Failover Cluster Manager” if you dont still have it open
2. Right click the cluster you want to modify and select “More actions -> Configure Quorum Settings”
3. Select “Node and Disk Majority” (or whatever you already have selected)
4. Select the new Disk that you want to use from the list (it should save “Available Storage” in the right column)
5. Click next on the confirmation page
6. Click Finish on the final step after the wizard has completed

Part 7. Move the SQL Data Disk

1. Open “Failover Cluster Manager”
2. Expand out the cluster your working on and select “SQL Server” under Services and applications
3. Select “Add storage” from the menu on the right
4. Select the new drive from the list, and click OK
5. In the middle column right click “Name: YourClusterNameHere” and select “Take this resource offline”
6. Confirm that you want to take SQL offline
7. Verify that SQL Server and SQL Server Agent are offline
8. Open Windows Explorer and copy the SQL data from the old drive to the new drive
9. Back in Failover Cluster Manger right click on the old disk in the middle column and select “Change drive letter”
10. Make the old drive a temporary drive letter other then what it currently is, Click OK
11. Confirm that you want to change the drive letter
12. Next right click the new drive and select change drive letter, set the new drive’s letter to what the old drive was
13. Again, confirm you want to change the drive letter
14. Right click on SQL Server and select “Bring this resource online”, do the same for SQL Server Agent
15. Right Click “Name: YourClusterNameHere” and select “Bring this resource online” in the middle column
16. Verify that SQL starts and is accessible

Part 8. Moving MS DTC Witness Disk

From what I have read MSDTC’s witness disk cannot be moved like the SQL data can. Instead you simply delete the DTC instance and then recreate it using the disk that you want to use.

1. Make sure SQL is shutdown
2. Next Take the DTC instance offline
3. Make sure to note the IP address of the DTC and the name
4. Right click and delete the DTC instance
5. Now right click on “Services and Applications” and select add new
6. Pick DTC from the list and click next
7. Fill in the information that you noted from the old instance, but select the new disk this time.
8. Finish the wizard and make sure that the new instance is online

Part 9. Verify Operational Status

1. Verify that SQL Server and SQL Agent are online
2. Verify that MSDTC is online
3. Login to SQL using a client application and verify functionality

This part is just to make sure that everything is still working. At this point you need to make sure that SQL is back online and that the client applications that it serves are working properly before we remove our old drives.

Part 10. Remove old disks from Cluster

1. Open Failover Cluster Manager
2. Select Storage
3. Verify that the disks under “Available Storage” are the old drives
4. Right click each old drive and select “Delete”
5. Confirm that you wish to delete the cluster disk

Part 11. Remove Old Disks from VM settings

This part would seem simple, but you must make sure you remove the correct RDM’s otherwise you will have problems. The best way that I found to make absolute sure was to make a node of how big the RDM’s were that I would be removing. Then we can browse the datastore of the primary node and see which VMDK descriptor files show that size. Of course this only works if they are different sizes, otherwise you will have to go but which order they are in windows and which order they are via the SCSI buss numbers in the VM settings.

After determining which disks need to be removed (which VMDK files they are that is):

1. On the secondary node go into Edit Settings and find which RDM drives have the same file name as the ones identified earlier
2. Select the Remove button at the top of the hardware information page.
3. Leave it set to “remove from vm” and don’t select delete from datastore
4. Click OK to commit the changes
5. Now go to the primary node’s Edit Settings dialog box
6. Repeat Steps 2 -4, but this time tell it to delete them from disk, as we no longer need the descriptor VMDK files for those RDM’s
7. Now that there should be nothing else using those RDM’s you can delete them from your old SAN or un-mask those LUNs from your VMware hosts.