I recently came across an puzzling SQL install issue.  Actually, it was more of a “SQL won’t let me install” issue with SQL 2008 R2. When running the SQL installer for a failover cluster, one of the prerequisite checks is that cluster validation has been run successfully on the Windows cluster.  If that test does not pass, you will get the error described in KB953748 . Note that this does show you a workaround to ignore this error, but do you really want to continue installing SQL when...

This was my first time attending the PASS Summit as a Microsoft employee, but I have been to the summit 6 times before.  I had typically gone to the summit simply for educational purposes and steered clear of a lot of networking and social events. This year I added more networking into the mix.  Instead of booting up my laptop and working, I tried to sit a different tables during each meal and chat with other attendees to network with customers. The PASS Summit has been invaluable to me...