Using SQL Server Aliases

Recently we set up a SharePoint 2010 development environment at work.  I was tasked with adding the SSRS 2008 R2 server to the farm and setting it up to run in integrated mode.

I followed the instruction in MSDN, firstly installing SharePoint then tried to join it to the farm.  However, it kept giving an error when I hit apply on the config database.  I digged around, and found in SharePoint it not using the actual server name of the config database.  Instead, it is using a alias to specify the SQL server host name.  It worked without problems after I create the same alias on the SSRS box and using it as the config database server.

You can create these aliases from SQL Server Configuration Manager.  Or for machines that don't the SSCM installed, you can use "cliconfg.exe", or SQL Server Client Network Utility, instead (see screenshot below).  This utility seems to be shipped with pretty much all current versions of Windows from XP/2003 onwards.

In the past I have been advocating the use of DNS entries instead of actual server names where the server could change.  This has the advantage that if you need to move the database (or whatever function the machine serves) to another server, it's a simple matter of updating the DNS entry.  In addition, this also allows you to provide a nice, easy to remember name if users will be accessing it directly.

Using SQL Server Aliases provides a similar facility that allows you to change the actual server with minimal change.  The difference is that you may need to update the alias in multiple places.  However, it is still a good option if, for some reason, it is not possible or not easy to make changes to the DNS.