SQL Server – Cluster Failover When Running Out of RAM

clusteringfailovermemorysql server

I have a SQL Server 2008 R2 in a Cluster in an active-passive mode.
The server is running out of RAM (both physical and pagefile).
In the instance level settings there is not Max RAM set (set to the maximum number).

Would the instance failover?

Best Answer

SQL Server being low on RAM is not going to be enough of an exception that will cause a failover. It will just start holding up transactions until it can either get more memory from the OS or transaction will fail from timeout.

I would think you could possibly see a failover event occur if the Windows Cluster Service, or dependent services/components, need memory and are not able to get it. I can't recall this happening before on environments I have supported, but think it could happen.