Amit Banerjee has just made a bunch of DBAs happy:
Starting Nov 1st, every Software Assurance customer of SQL Server will be able to use three enhanced benefits for any SQL Server release that is still supported by Microsoft:
– Failover servers for high availability – Allows customers to install and run passive SQL Server instances in a separate operating system environment (OSE) or server for high availability on-premises in anticipation of a failover event. Today, Software Assurance customers have one free passive instance for either high availability or DR
– Failover servers for disaster recovery NEW – Allows customers to install and run passive SQL Server instances in a separate OSE or server on-premises for disaster recovery in anticipation of a failover event
– Failover servers for disaster recovery in Azure NEW – Allows customers to install and run passive SQL Server instances in a separate OSE or server for disaster recovery in Azure in anticipation of a failover event
You still need to pay if you’re using the servers (as read-only replicas, for example), but this can substantially reduce your SQL Server licensing costs.
Hi, this is a great news! Just one question: does the passive replica used as the DR site have to set exclusively in async mode to take advantage of the benefits? What happens about the licensing if i set the DR replica in sync mode?
Hi, Elena. With the caveat that I am not a licensing expert and you should listen to licensing experts more than you should listen to me on this, my understanding is that synchronous versus asynchronous shouldn’t matter.