Published: May 12, 2010

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Cumulative Update 2 failover clustering can be used to configure availability within a farm for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. This article assumes that you are familiar with the concepts and terms presented in Plan for availability (SharePoint Server 2010).

Failover clustering provides availability support for an instance of SQL Server 2008 with SP1 and Cumulative Update 2. A failover cluster is a combination of one or more nodes or servers and two or more shared disks. A failover cluster instance appears as a single computer, but has functionality that provides failover from one node to another if the current node becomes unavailable.

SharePoint Server 2010 references the cluster as a whole; therefore, failover is automatic and seamless from the perspective of SharePoint Server 2010.

For detailed information about failover clustering, see Getting Started with SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=102837&clcid=0x409).

There are no instructions specific to setting up clustering for SharePoint Server 2010. For instructions on how to set up failover clustering, see Installing a SQL Server 2008 Failover Cluster (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=132112&clcid=0x409).

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