How to change the IP address of the cluster nodes hosting a SQL Server instance

For whatever reason, there doesn’t seem to be a good post on how to change the IP addresses of the physical cluster nodes hosting a clustered SQL instance (or multiple clustered SQL instances). So after piecing together some articles and testing, here are the simple steps:

Setup:

2-node Microsoft Cluster, each node is running Windows Server 2008 R2. In my case I had two SQL 2008 instances, each normally running on one of the nodes, in an ‘Active-Active’ setup.

SQL Instance A – the applications and services belonging to one of the SQL instances (IPs, names, drives, services, etc.)

Node n – each of the nodes

Take SQL Instance A offline on Node 1 (do not fail over, just take it offline)
Change IP address on Network Adapters (in Windows)
In Cluster Administrator, change the IP address of the all SQL resources (Services and applications) of Instance A to new IPs. You have to do this twice for some reason (click Apply, then OK, then open the properties again and re-set the IP – you will know you need to do it, when the IP under the Resource Name says “”IP Address: Address on Cluster Network x” instead of the actual IP address, and when you open the properties, the mask is set to 0.0.0.0). Confirm a new network has been created under Networks and it is setup as Enabled
Bring Instance A online
Repeat 1-4 for the second instance on Node 2 for Instance B
Failover to test

Simple. 🙂

This entry was posted on 2012/03/30 at 13:44 and is filed under Microsoft SQL Server with tags microsoft cluster, sql resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “How to change the IP address of the cluster nodes hosting a SQL Server instance”

Neven Says:
2012/06/18 at 07:16

Hi,

Does these steps work when You have to move SQL Cluster in to new VLAN too ?

Reply
- CRCerr0r Says:
  2012/06/18 at 07:38
  
  Yes, the procedure should be the same. The only thing I can add (and this is unrelated to the steps above, but may apply in your case) is that you make sure your clients are not blocked by a firewall or router ACLs when you move the SQL server.
  
  Reply
albertwt Says:
2013/11/25 at 07:37

Hi There, does the step to change the MSCS IP address must requires both nodes to be down ?

I was thinking that I can do that while the server is failed over to the other node.

Reply
- CRCerr0r Says:
  2014/01/21 at 09:58
  
  Hi albertwt
  Sorry for the delayed reply. I am guessing you probably already figured this out, but I’ll reply anyway. I did have both hosts down, because in my case I was changing VLANs as well, and it was a rather disruptive change to begin with, but I would guess if you are changing IPs within the same local network and not crossing boundaries, you could have one node up while you work on the other.
  
  hth
  
  Reply
Marc Says:
2015/04/20 at 11:46

This was very helpful, thanks for posting it.

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