This section outlines the technical steps required to migrate a SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance (FCI) with shared disks. To prepare for the migration of VMs hosting SQL Server FCI, check first the prerequisites outlined in Architectural Guidelines and Operational Considerations and Standalone SQL Server Migration sections of this document, as all of these apply.
The new feature, recently introduced in VMware Cloud on AWS – SCSI-3 Persistent Reservations (SCSI3-PRs) native support - makes it possible to host SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances on VMDK on VMware Cloud on AWS. SCSI3-PRs native support enables customers to create a new or move an existing Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) with up to 6 nodes and 64 shared disks to VMware Cloud on AWS. SCSI3-PRs commands, used by WSFC to claim the ownership of a shared disk, are transparently passed to a VMDK and are arbitrated on the vSAN layer to simulate a dedicated LUN. To facilitate the ability to use direct SCSI commands, it’s required to set the SCSI bus sharing on a vSCSI controller of a VM, node of a cluster, hosting clustered VMDK(s), to physical.
Note: WSFC with shared disks is supported both on standalone and stretched clusters SDDC.
To illustrate the migration process, we will be using a three-node SQL Server FCI cluster (SQL-DB1) with shared disks, hosted on the following VMs:
- SQL-DB1Node01
- SQL-DB1Node02
- SQL-DB1Node03
