ODBC DSN connection error

Question

I’ve moved a SQL 2005 database to a new 64bit server 2008 server for vSpere 4. I’m using the recommended 32bit Native SQL client ODBC Data Source but can’t get it to pass a connection test.

The error is:

 Could not open a connection to SQL server (2) Login timeout expired.  An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server. When connecting to SQL server this failure may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL server does not allow remote connections.

I have allowed remote connections.  Any ideas how to troubleshoot this problem would be appreciated.

Answer 1

For VSphere 4, I am not sure how port forwarding is managed or dealt with.  This message indicates network connectivity issues between the client and server.  Typically, this means that the port is blocked by a firewall.  In this case, it may be that the port is not being forwarded to the virtual server from the host OS.  If you are familiar with the virtualization technology you are using, I would suggest verifying that traffic is being forwarded over 1434 by default as well as the SQL Server port if it is a named instance.

Hope that helps,

John

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