Rename a cluster.. is it possible

We have a single instance cluster on 2 nodes say SQL1. We want to do a
side-by-side upgrade of the underlying hardware and we have another cluster
with 2 nodes already ready and its called SQL2. At the time of cutover, we
want to just rename SQL1 to SQLOld and SQL2 back to SQL1 so that our
applications can connect to SQL1 without having to go through any connection
name changes.

Can it be done ? We've done many of these on standalone SQL instances by
renaming servers.. Wasnt too sure how it works on a cluster. Especially
since we are not dependent on the node names and the applications just
connect to the Virtual SQL instance, I was not too sure how to go about the
same.

Thanks

We are using SQL 2000...

Also in SQL 2005, is it the same or is it better to do this easily ?

Why not just create a DNS alias and use that?

--
Tom

----------------------------------------------------
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA, MCITP, MCTS
SQL Server MVP
Toronto, ON Canada
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Tom.Moreau


"Hassan" wrote in message

We have a single instance cluster on 2 nodes say SQL1. We want to do a
side-by-side upgrade of the underlying hardware and we have another cluster
with 2 nodes already ready and its called SQL2. At the time of cutover, we
want to just rename SQL1 to SQLOld and SQL2 back to SQL1 so that our
applications can connect to SQL1 without having to go through any connection
name changes.

Can it be done ? We've done many of these on standalone SQL instances by
renaming servers.. Wasnt too sure how it works on a cluster. Especially
since we are not dependent on the node names and the applications just
connect to the Virtual SQL instance, I was not too sure how to go about the
same.

Thanks

We are using SQL 2000...

Also in SQL 2005, is it the same or is it better to do this easily ?