AlwaysOn Architecture Guide: Building a High Availability and Disaster Recovery Solution by Using AlwaysOn Availability Groups

  • Article

Authors: Joseph Sack (SQLskills.com), Sanjay Mishra (Microsoft)

Technical Reviewers: Lindsey Allen (MS), Juergen Thomas (MS), Mike Weiner (MS), Prem Mehra (MS), Yorihito Tada (MS), Curt Matthews (MS), Amitabh Tamhane (MS), Aditya Samant (MS), Daniel Janik (MS), Jimmy May (MS), David P Smith (ServiceU), Richard Waymire (SolidQ), Brent Ozar (Brent Ozar PLF), Wolfgang Kutschera (bwin.party), Paul S. Randal (SQLskills.com), Gianluca Hotz (SolidQ), Ayad Shammout (Caregroup)

Content Program Manager: Glenn Minch (Microsoft)

Summary: SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups provides a unified high availability and disaster recovery (HADR) solution that improves upon legacy functionality previously found across disparate features. Prior to SQL Server 2012, several customers used database mirroring to provide local high availability within a data center, and log shipping for disaster recovery across a remote data center. With SQL Server 2012, this common design pattern can be replaced with an architecture that uses availability groups for both high availability and disaster recovery. This paper details the key topology requirements of this specific design pattern, including quorum configuration considerations, steps required to build the environment, and a workflow that shows how to handle a disaster recovery event in the new topology.

Read on: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj191711