CRM2011 On-Premise Installation Failure: The SQL Server ‘{0}’ is unavailable

I have been trying to install CRM2011 On-Premise on a brand new Windows2008R2 Server connecting to a brand new SQL2008R2 server and getting installation failure: The SQL Server ‘{0}’ is unavailable.  After doing some testing and troubleshooting, found out to be Firewall related and here is what I do to open up port 1433 on a Windows 2008 Server. 

To open a port in the Windows firewall for TCP access

1. On the Start menu, click Run, type WF.msc, and then click OK.

2. In the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, in the left pane, right-click Inbound Rules, and then click New Rule in the action pane.

3. In the Rule Type dialog box, select Port, and then click Next.

4. In the Protocol and Ports dialog box, select TCP. Select Specific local ports, and then type the port number of the instance of the Database Engine, such as 1433 for the default instance. Click Next.

5. In the Action dialog box, select Allow the connection, and then click Next.

6. In the Profile dialog box, select any profiles that describe the computer connection environment when you want to connect to the Database Engine, and then click Next.

7. In the Name dialog box, type a name and description for this rule, and then click Finish.

While I was troubleshooting, also found these information from CRM2011 Planning Guide to be really useful.

Network ports for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web application

The following table lists the ports used for a server that is running a Full Server installation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Moreover, except for the Microsoft SQL Server role, and the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connector for SQL Server Reporting Services server role, all server roles are installed on the same computer.

Protocol	Port	Description	Explanation
TCP	80	HTTP	Default Web application port. This port may be different as it can be changed during Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server Setup. For new Web sites, the default port number is 5555.
TCP	135	MSRPC	RPC endpoint resolution.
TCP	139	NETBIOS-SSN	NETBIOS session service.
TCP	443	HTTPS	Default secure HTTP port. The port number may differ from the default port. This secure network transport must be manually configured. Although this port is not required to run Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we strongly recommend it. For information about how to configure HTTPS for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, see "Make Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client-to-server network communications more secure" in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Installing GuideMake Microsoft Dynamics CRM client-to-server network communications more secure .
TCP	445	Microsoft-DS	Active Directory directory service required for Active Directory access and authentication.
UDP	123	NTP	Network Time Protocol.
UDP	137	NETBIOS-NS	NETBIOS name service.
UDP	138	NETBIOS-dgm	NETBIOS datagram service.
UDP	445	Microsoft-DS	Active Directory service required for Active Directory access and authentication.
UDP	1025	Blackjack	DCOM, used as an RPC listener.

Network ports that are used by the SQL Server that runs the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connector for SQL Server Reporting Services server roles

The following table lists the ports that are used for a computer that is running SQL Server and has only SQL Server and the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connector for SQL Server Reporting Services server roles installed.

Protocol	Port	Description	Explanation
TCP	135	MSRPC	RPC endpoint resolution.
TCP	139	NETBIOS-SSN	NETBIOS session service.
TCP	445	Microsoft-DS	Active Directory required for Active Directory access and authentication.
TCP	1433	ms-sql-s	SQL Server sockets service. This port is required for access to SQL Server.This number may be different if you have configured your default instance of SQL Server to use a different port number or you are using a named instance.
UDP	123	NTP	Network Time Protocol.
UDP	137	NETBIOS-NS	NETBIOS name service.
UDP	138	NETBIOS-dgm	NETBIOS datagram service.
UDP	445	Microsoft-DS	Active Directory service required for Active Directory access and authentication.
UDP	1025	Blackjack	DCOM, used as an RPC listener.

Buy or Build

I have been helping with a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 tender and through the process I found a really interesting article.  Although this article is rather old (produced back to 2004), it has some really interesting statistics.  Here is the abstract of the article:

When developing software, research has shown that there is an inverse correlation between the size of a project and the probability that it will actually be completed (see fig. 1.0). It’s not uncommon to hear about a large bank that lost $7 million after pulling the plug on a $30 million project. The likelihood of success is greater for outsourced projects when compared to in-house development, most likely because software development is the core competency of third party developers. This means that projects that are larger in scope should most likely be developed by a third party developer or you should scour the landscape for COTS application that can be customized to your requirements.

Project Size	People	Time (months)	Success
<$750k	6	6	55%
$750k-$1.5M	12	9	33%
$1.5m-$3m	25	12	25%
$6m-$10m	250+	24+	8%
$10m+	500+	36+	0%

The actual source of the document is here http://www.insidus.com/BuyorBuild.pdf Hope you find this interesting too!