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just want to straighten my concept properly - when we are talking about SQL multi instance failover cluster, e.g. on a 2 node cluster, it means that each node can run its own sql instance, but each instances are running its own database right ?

e.g. 2 nodes (node1, node2)
sql instance A on node1
sql instance B on node2

sql instance A and B are individual instances and are not sharing the same database right ?

when node1 is down, SQL instance A will move to node2 but both sql instance A and B are still separate databases - right ?

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That's correct. A traditional failover cluster may contain multiple instances, and each instance may contain multiple databases. A database is part of only one instance, and an instance only runs on one node at a time.

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  • so it isn't like oracle rac whereby 2 instance share the same database yea ? in ms sql, the database is only use by 1 instance. so the instances on each node are running their own separate databases yea ?
    – tiongmaru
    Feb 5, 2016 at 16:51
  • Right. The cluster fails over the whole instance and all the associated databases. To get something closer to RAC, you'd use an AlwaysOn availability group.
    – techieb0y
    Feb 6, 2016 at 3:54
  • so at any moment, only 1 particular instance/database run on 1 particular node, another node might run another instance, but it is a separate instance with its own database - right ? (sorry I know I sounds naggy, just wanna be sure)
    – tiongmaru
    Feb 7, 2016 at 4:21
  • Correct -- a node could run more than one instance at a time if it has sufficient resources, but any given instance is only active on one node at a time, and a single database is an active member of only one instance. (Now, you might be able to set up two instances such that instance A has a db active and mirrors or replicates that to instance B, but that would be generally overly complicated.)
    – techieb0y
    Feb 8, 2016 at 2:21
  • just curious - why can't ms sql do active-active ?
    – tiongmaru
    Feb 9, 2016 at 11:11

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