SQL Server AlwaysOn template in the Azure Preview Portal updated

Greetings SAB Members,

In this blog post, I gave a brief overview of the SQL Server AlwaysOn template in the Azure Preview Portal, which allows you to create a SQL Server AlwaysOn configuration by specifying a few settings. The result is five virtual machines in this configuration.

The original template created this configuration in a cloud-only network, which was great for a test environment or as the basis for an Internet-facing web or business intelligence farm.

The latest version of the SQL Server AlwaysOn template in the Azure Preview Portal now includes support for specifying an existing Active Directory domain and virtual network. This allows you to create a new SQL Server AlwaysOn configuration for your production network in a virtual network that is already connected to your on-premises network.

For example, you could use this template as the first phase of a SharePoint disaster recovery farm hosted in Azure, specifying the Active Directory domain of your on-premises SharePoint farm.

After the template creates these five computers, you add the computers for the front-end web and application tiers of the SharePoint farm to complete the Azure-based configuration.

For more information about this solution, see SharePoint Server 2013 Disaster Recovery in Microsoft Azure.

For additional information about the new features of this template, see SQL Server AlwaysOn Template in Azure Portal Now Supports Existing Domains and is Much Faster.

Enjoy.

Joe Davies
Senior Content Developer
Transform the Datacenter