Move cluster disks from one SAN to another

[Jonas Back_2]

We have a Windows 2003 Cluster with SQL 2000 and the shared storage is on a SAN.

We have a new SAN setup and want to move the cluster to this SAN. If it would be fileservers, this wouldn't be a problem but it becomes a little bit more complicated when it's a cluster with its' Quorom disks etc.

Anyone has a walkthrough or done this many times and can point out som pitfalls etc?

[Ivan Ferreira]

Cluster and quorum disks can be recovered with the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit
tool ClusterRecovery, which substitutes the newly created physical disk resource for the failed resource.

The properties of the failed resource are automatically transferred to the new resource.

Any dependencies on the old resource are changed to point to the new resource.

Note: In case of a failed quorum disk, the cluster service must be started with parameter
â /fixquorumâ .

[Rune J. Winje]

The quorum disk is easy if you only have the quorum on it.
Cluster Admin > Cluster Properties > Quorum tab > select the disk you want to place/move the quorum on.

Before getting to this point and before using clusterrecovery:

1) Present the new SAN disks to the cluster
2) Restore the last full backup of the disk content from the old disks to the new disks. Take care to restore with security.
3) Downtime for clients begin when you take all resources except the disks offline.
4) Use Robocopy (latest version XP010 important) to sync the new and old disk content (alternatively via differential backup/restore or 3.rd party tool). Be sure to include security and owner information when using Robocopy.
5) Use clusterrecovery to swap old and new disks (except the quorum disk that has to be online for clusterrecovery to work). Move the quorum manually.
6) Bring resources online and reconnect client network.
7) Test that everything is working OK.
- Rollback is to switch disks back if not OK.
8) Delete the original (old disks) from the cluster.


Cheers,
Rune