Install cumulative update package 7 on a SQL Server Cluster?
IN continuation to the post Rollback_of_CumulativeUpdate-hotfix-ServicePack I was asked about any procedure or steps on installing Cumulative update package 7 for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 on Active node SQL 2005 cluster.
The simple answer is all of such hotfix/Service Pack/Cumulative Update packages are cluster-aware. That means when you obtain the Hotfix or Cumulative Update from CSS they will need all of your Server information in order to provide you the correct binaries setup files. IN this case you should always extract the files from setup pack and look for any instructions such as README files, if not you can stress the CSS to provide the installation steps or procedure for Cluster based installations. So going forward you can simply start the install on the node that owns the SQL instance you want to patch and the installer prompts for everything else.
Bear in mind that such installation will always be treated as offline operation and will need to stop the SQL Server services and possibility of nodes to be rebooted. In any case do not forget to ask about uninstall methods too from CSS, as you may never know when it is needed.