Failover Clustering Support

In Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Enterprise Edition, the number of nodes supported in SQL Server 2000 failover clustering depends on the operating system you are running:

• Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0, Enterprise Edition, Microsoft Windows® 2000 Advanced Server, and Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server support two-node failover clustering.
  
  
• Windows 2000 Datacenter Server supports up to four-node failover clustering, including an active/active/active/active failover clustering configuration.

The following tools, features and components are supported with failover clustering:

• Microsoft Search service. For more information, see Using SQL Server Tools with Failover Clustering.
  
  
• Multiple instances. For more information, see Failover Clustering.
  
  
• SQL Server Enterprise Manager. For more information, see Using SQL Server Tools with Failover Clustering.
  
  
• Service Control Manager. For more information, see Using SQL Server Tools with Failover Clustering.
  
  
• Replication. For more information, see Creating a Failover Cluster.
  
  
• SQL Profiler. For more information, see Using SQL Server Tools with Failover Clustering.
  
  
• SQL Query Analyzer. For more information, see Using SQL Server Tools with Failover Clustering.
  
  
• SQL Mail. For more information, see Using SQL Server Tools with Failover Clustering.

The following component is not supported for failover clustering:

• SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services

Note  Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.6 is not supported for SQL Server version 6.5 or SQL Server 7.0, when either version is in a failover cluster configuration.

Before using failover clustering, consider the following:

• Failover clustering resources, including the IP addresses and network name, must be used only when you are running an instance of SQL Server 2000. They should not be used for other purposes, such as file sharing.
  
  
• In a failover cluster configuration, SQL Server 2000 supports Windows NT 4.0, Enterprise Edition but requires that the service accounts for SQL Server services (SQL Server and SQL Server Agent) be local administrators of all nodes in the cluster.

Important  SQL Server 2000 supports both Named Pipes and TCP/IP Sockets over TCP/IP within a failover cluster. However, it is strongly recommended that you use TCP/IP Sockets in a clustered configuration.