Configure SQL Server 2000 in SAN.

Our company is going to use SAN (HP or EMC or Fuji) for SQL Server failover rather than MSCS. So far, DBA has no knowledge of SAN.

Would you please to tell me, how does SAN depend on SQL Server? I assume SAN software can make disk failover if there is a network, disk or OS failure in primary node. If SQL Server or SQL Agent is failure, can SAN software detect it? (or can SAN disk failover depend on SQL Server or SQL Agent services?)

Please let me know where can I find any configuration document regarding SAN for SQL Server failure. I had spent 2 days in HP and EMC wrbsite and found nothing.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Mary

SAN is just a common storage area where multiple system can use the storage space.

When SQL server fails the data will be safe in the SAN.

MSCS is the best way to go for failover.
For MSCS you need a common storage either SAN or NAS.

http://www.sql-server-performance.com/ew_san.asp

Thank you for the answer. We are not going to use MSCS which is part of Win 2000 Advanced Server. The only function we will use is SAN Disk Failover. Most articles mentioned SQL Server I/O in SAN Disk but failing to tell how Disk Failover is depend on SQL Server.

Would you please to tell me, how does SAN depend on SQL Server? I assume SAN software can make disk failover if there is a network, disk or OS failure in primary node. If SQL Server or SQL Agent is failure, can SAN software detect it? (or can SAN disk failover depend on SQL Server or SQL Agent services?)

Thanks,

Mary

I dont think so. You need MSCS for failover.

If your company dont like to spend on MSCS you can do log shipping(standby server).

or

Replication (not applicable in most cases)

If don't use MSCS, SAN disk failover is nothing to do with SQL Server nor SQL Agent service.