Apress - Accelerated SQL Server 2008 (2008)02

Apress - Accelerated SQL Server 2008 (2008) 02
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Apress - Accelerated SQL Server 2008 (2008)02CHAPTER 2SQL Server Installation andConfigurationT hose of us who have spent many years in product development might come to the conclusionthat one of the least glamorous jobs is to design and code the installation and configuration ofa product. This task is often contracted out to consultants, so companies can keep their most tal-ented developers happy working on the complex logic within the product. Alternatively, a companycan have great in-house people do the job, but not hire enough staff or not fund that part of theproject well enough to build a high-quality setup experience. The latter seems to be the case withprevious versions of SQL Server. Microsoft has now realized that the first impression of the product is the setup and configura-tion experience. Microsoft has definitely invested in this experience in SQL Server 2008, and it shows.The experience of installation and configuration of SQL Server 2008 can be summarized in a singleword: pleasant. Not only is the user interface clean, but there are also extra wizards that help you setup and configure the more complicated features like clustering. In general, you will find SQL Server2008 easy to install, thanks to all the hard work that the setup team did in completely redesigningthe experience for SQL Server 2008. If any Microsoft managers are reading this, please give themembers of the team a few hundred dollars bonus on their next review. This chapter covers the following topics: • Requirements for SQL Server 2008 • Pre-upgrade tasks • The Upgrade Advisor tool • SQL Server 2008 installationSQL Server RequirementsThe minimum RAM required to run SQL Server is 512MB, with 1GB recommended if you are plan-ning to use SQL Server to handle larger workloads. For disk space, you neeed 290MB. Disk space is cheap. Even if you are installing SQL Server ona desktop machine, you probably have at least a few gigabytes free. If you are concerned that youdon’t have 290MB free to install just the database engine, you probably have some other problemsto deal with first. The exact space requirements depend on what you install. SQL Server Books Onlinedoes a great job at enumerating specifically what each components takes as far as disk space is con-cerned, in an article appropriately titled “Hardware and Software Requirements for Installing SQLServer 2008.” (SQL Server Books Online is available online from http://msdn.microsoft.com.) 910 CHAPTER 2 ■ SQL SERVER INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION SQL Server 2008 works on almost all flavors of Windows: XP Vista, Windows Server 2003, and , Windows Server 2008. But do watch out for the service pack requirements. As an example, the February Community Technology Preview (CTP) release requires Service Pack 2 if you are running SQL Server on Windows Server 2003. If your organization takes a while to move to service packs, you may want to factor this into your deployment schedule. Upgrading to SQL Server 2008 Setup supports a direct upgrade from SQL Server 2000 and 2005. Those of you still on SQL 7.0 will need to upgrade to SQL Server 2000 or 2005 first before upgrading to SQL Server 2008. Since the product development cycle was shorter than that of SQL Server 2005, the changes and issues involved with upgrading from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 are minimal compared with the move from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2008. You can upgrade to SQL Server in two ways: • Direct in-place upgrade: SQL Server setup does the heavy lifting of updating the necessary binary files and upgrades all the attached databases to the new version’s format. • Side-by-side upgrade: This is sometimes referred to as a migration. It essentially installs a fresh SQL Server 2008 instance alongside the instance that is to be upgraded. This process is mostly manual, since the idea is for the database administrator (DBA) to copy over the databases and configuration information to the new server. Once this information is copied and attached, the DBA can verify that the applications work correctly. The in-place upgrade is the more automated of the two options, but might not be the best option for some organizations. An in-place upgrade takes down the server for a duration of time, and without previous testing, who knows what will happen after the upgrade is complete? The posi- tive aspect of the in-place upgrade is that when the upgrade is completed, the instance name of the new SQL Server is the same as it was pre-upgrade, so existing applications do not need to change any connection string information. With a side-by-side upgrade, the new installation uses a new instance name, so applications might need to have their connection string information changed to point to the new instance. To help you with the upgrade, Microsoft released a free tool called Upgrade Advisor, which essentially scans your existing SQL Server instance and gives you a report on any potential issues you will have after the upgrade. But before we talk about using Upgrade Advisor, we need to discuss planning the upgrade. If you were going to simply upgrade your production servers without a plan, then you may want to consider freshening up your resumé. A plan is critical to the success of an upgrade. Planning the Upgrade A smooth upgrade requires a good plan. Before you upgrade, you need to prepare your environment. The pre-upgrade tasks include the following: • Ensure the server ...