Knowledge Base

Licensing SQL Response on a clustered SQL Server

Category: Licensing & activation
Date: 07 Jul 2009
Product: SQL Response
Platforms: Clustered SQL Servers utilizing Microsoft Clustering Services

When activating the licence on a clustered SQL Server, there are special considerations because of the fact that SQL Response is licensed per physical server.

Therefore, SQL Response will require one product licence for each node of the cluster.

To licence a clustered SQL Server for monitoring by SQL Response, first add the SQL Server cluster by its virtual IP address or name.

When you go to activate the server licence through its' virtual SQL Server address, SQL Response will detect that the SQL Server is clustered and present you with multiple activation dialogs, one for each cluster hardware node.

While it is true that no information is saved on the cluster node computers, SQL Response still needs the machine hardware information that it gets from each and every physical node. It is not necessary to failover the cluster to activate the licence, however, because the machine information is gathered using WMI rather than by connecting to the SQL Server itself to get the hardware information about the cluster node.

If you want to deactivate the licence, you will also be presented with a deactivation dialog for all nodes.

If you had to replace a node, you would need to deactivate the whole cluster, replace your node, and activate the whole cluster again.