How to increase the Delay time?

Symptoms

In an existing AutoStart domain configured with the SQL Module, the SQL Agent service fails shortly after onlining the Resource  Group.

When Resouce Group is started all resource move to the online state normally, but within 30 second the SQL Agent Service fails and reports the following error:

     Connection to server " \ " impossible;
     SQLServerAgent cannot start

Cause

In the startup sequence of the Resource Group the SQL Server service is started prior to the SQL Agent service.  This is required as the the SQL Agent is a service that is dependant on the SQL Server service.

The SQL Server service has not completed it's start up and then the SQL Agent service is started.  The SQL Agent service relys on the SQL Server service to be completely started before it can successfully start.

This may not be readily apparent as the Windows Services snap-in will sometimes report that the SQL Server service is in a "started" state, even though internally the service is not completely finished starting and/or ready for a dependant service to start against it.

Resolution

This is a timing issue with the start up of dependant services in Windows and SQL.  This can be addressed via the configuration of resources within the Resource Group.  A Resource Group has the ability/option to place a delay between resources in a start up sequence.  There is a specific resource called "Delay" which can be configured to delay the startup sequence between two resources as long as required.  The length of the required delay will need to be determined by the Administrator and will be based on any number of factors specific to performance issues.

In the case of this specific use case, a 30 Second Delay was placed in the Resource Group startup sequence, between the start up of the SQL Server and SQL Agent services.