SQL Standard 2016 Basic Always On

High Availability
1

Hi,

I got a requirement to configure basic Alwayson availabillity group in sql 2016 standard edition.
May i know prerequisites.

For Basic Always on do we need Active directory,Fail over cluster, and DNS?

I got 2 new blank vms. Do i need to add this two nodes in fail over cluster??? I have to do it everything from scratch. Please help what else i can do it to configure the basic alwayson in standard sql 2016.

Thanks,
Jo

2
3

Yes, you need a fail over cluster. I'd start with this MS document: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/availability-groups/windows/prereqs-restrictions-recommendations-always-on-availability?view=sql-server-2017

4

Thank you very much.. How many databases we can add in the Standard Allwayson group?
I see only one db can be added in the standard edition. What if we want to add more dbs to group?
Can you please clarify.

5

SQL Server Standard allows one database per Availability Group and they must be synchronous. You can have multiple AGs though It just might be difficult to keep them on the same machine.

If you want multiple databases per AG you will need Enterprise Edition.

6

Sure. once we configure the Basic Always on configuration in Standard edition can i apply license of the enterprise edition later on for SQL Server? Then we can add multiple dbs to alwayson group..
Please suggest is this ok to do it?

7

Somewhere inside the SQL Server setup there is an option to upgrade from Standard to Enterprise. It is very quick but does require a restart.

Based on a quick Google search, you may have to recreate the Availability Group. But that should be easy to do.