Activity 9.2: Partitioning Data in a SQL Server Database

Lucerne Publishing stores a large amount of data in its SQL Server database. Because of this, performance suffers during peak hours. As the network administrator, you decide to partition the data so that the system can perform more transactions during peak usage. You plan to partition the data across three instances of SQL Server. However, you want to maintain the high availability that your site currently supports. Your budget provides for up to six identical servers. You decide to use all six computers to create three single-instance failover clusters.

1. How should you set up the failover clusters?

   One of the tables in the database is named Customers. You partition this table across the three clusters based on the sales region in which the customer is located. Your company is split into six sales regions, so you partition the data so that each partition includes two regions. However, your ASP application must be able to request data from customers in all three regions.

2. What methods can your application use to access the data?

   Your organization decides to implement four Windows 2000 Datacenter Server computers. However, you still want to support partitioning the data into three partitions while still providing failover protection.

3. How can you configure your failover clustering?