Summary
In this chapter, you learned that High Availability of a SQL Server 2012 instance is achieved through Clustering. Although achieving 100% uptime is virtually impossible, Clustering allows you to maintain a consistent service level guarantee close to 100% uptime, sometimes expressed as “five 9s” or 99.999%.
Clustering works by constantly checking for responsiveness of clustered nodes, drives, IP addresses, network names and other objects. If no response is detected within the default or configured thresholds, failover of SQL Server instance to another clustered node initiates.
To install SQL Server 2012 as a Clustered instance you first configure Windows Server for Clustering by setting up network configurations for public and private communications, adding necessary server roles and services to support the Failover Clustering feature. A Windows Cluster is created using the Failover Cluster Manager and following the Cluster Wizard.
After Windows Server is configured for Clustering, you install SQL Server 2012 as a Clustered instance from the SQL Server 2012 Installation Center option Add Node to a SQL Server Failover Cluster.
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