Load Balancing SQL server Databases

[Jamie Sutherland]

Hi,
We have 2 SQL Servers running 2000 Ent Edition on Windows 2003 Server
Standard Edition (Can be upgraded to enterprise if required). We need to
load balance the databases between them. The servers are in separate rooms
however there is CAT 5e cable running between them. What is the best way to
load balance SQL Server.

Thanks
Jamie

[Greg Linwood]

Hi Jamie.

SQL Server doesn't do generalised load balancing per se. It's clustering
features are oriented mainly around fail-over clustering, although it is
possible to perform a level of manual load balancing using multi-instancing
(active / active). This lets you move individual databases between servers
to handle load, but isn't load balancing at the sql engine level as with
Oracle 9i. Obviously this won't help if you're trying to load balance an
individual database.

SQL Server also has federated servers, although this is not really load
balancing either. It is a shared nothing approach to clustering, mainly
designed to meet scale-out requirements rather than load balancing.

Regards,
Greg Linwood

"Jamie Sutherland" <jamie.su...@nospam.nhcscotland.com> wrote in
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