SQL Enterprise Failover Clustering with BuildMaster

All:

I'm installing and configuring BuildMaster in our new server environment that is being built with Windows Failover Clustering supporting SQL Server 2012 Enterprise. I'm having trouble configuring the instances. I've installed the agents on both the primary and secondary node, and setup a server group for the two nodes. Unfortunately, when I go into an application to setup a database connection, I can't select the Server Group, only individual servers.

From here I can select the Primary Node and issue a connection string with the instance name, but I'm concerned that it is dependent on the primary node being up and running. In other words, BuildMaster won't work with the failover configuration if we're in a failover state.

Has anyone had any thoughts regarding this?

Product: BuildMaster
Version: 4.4.4

Hey Kevin, in this case I don't think you'd want to set up two different SqlDatabase Connections. That server drop down box is really just meant for proxying connections over networks. You do not need to install an agent on the SQL Server box itself (nor do we recommend that, generally speaking).

Typically the failover is handled by the sqlClient (driver), and thus you just need to specify it in your connection string:

Data Source=myServerAddress;Failover Partner=myMirrorServerAddress;
Initial Catalog=myDataBase;Integrated Security=True;

The SQL Cluster will automatically take care of updating the failover clusters. You don't need to do that from BuildMaster.

If you don't recommend installing the agent on the database server, why does the register new database have a "Server" field? The examples I've seen in the help documentation lead me to believe these were servers that had agents on them and were registered in the list of servers.

In fact, in trying to execute some actions (such as restore database) it was pretty obvious that the agent would need to be restored because the restore action can only be run from the machine the RDBMS is running on, and to at least copy the file over you would probably want to have the agent installed.

IN Database connections, the "Server" field is where the connection will originate from. If your BuildMaster server can talk to database (i.e. has both network access, permission, and drivers), then it's usually simpler to enter the connection string and not worry about installing an agent. It's not a problem to install the agent, it's just not always necessary.

Of course, if you need to do other things such as transfer files, then an agent will come in handy.