SQL Always On Availability Groups Part 7: Manual Failover Testing
The AG is healthy and replicating (verified in Part 6). The whole point of building this is failover — so we exercise it now. Three tests in this part: Manual…
Tag: High Availability
SQL Always On Availability Groups Part 5: Configure the AG + Listener
This is the part where everything we built in Parts 1–4 finally becomes an Availability Group. Two SQL nodes, a Windows Failover Cluster, AlwaysOn enabled, demodb in FULL recovery with…
SQL Always On Availability Groups Part 2: Install SQL Server 2022 + SSMS
With both VMs built and joined to the domain in Part 1, the next step is installing SQL Server 2022 + SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) on both nodes. Identical…
SQL Always On Availability Groups Part 1: Creating Hyper-V VMs
SQL Server Always On Availability Groups (AG) are the modern HA + DR primitive for SQL workloads. Two or more SQL nodes hold synchronized copies of the same database. A…
Two-Node Hyper-V Failover Cluster Part 14 of 15: Test Failover (Live Migration + Auto-Failover)
Cluster built, HA VM running. Now we prove it works under both planned and unplanned conditions. Phase 1: Live Migration — planned move from Node-01 to Node-02 with zero downtime.…
Two-Node Hyper-V Failover Cluster Part 13 of 15: Create Highly Available VM
Cluster is fully prepared. Now we create the first highly available VM — one that can failover between NODE-01 and NODE-02. The single most important detail: create the VM via…
Two-Node Hyper-V Failover Cluster Part 1 of 15: Planning & Lab Overview
Welcome to part 1 of a 15-part series on building a Two-Node Hyper-V Failover Cluster. This is a planning post — no terminals, no wizards, no screenshots. The architecture goes…
SQL Server FCI Part 8 of 13: Testing the Failover (Break Things on Purpose)
Eight parts of work get tested in 30 seconds. We create some baseline data on the active node, kill the active node hard, watch the cluster move SQL to the…
SQL Server FCI Part 7 of 13: Adding the Second Node (Node-02) — Real HA Begins
SQL Server is installed on Node-01 only — that’s technically a single point of failure dressed up as a cluster. This part fixes that. We run the same setup.exe on…
SQL Server FCI Part 1 of 13: Lab Overview & Architecture (Nodes, Networks, iSCSI SAN)
Welcome to part 1 of a 13-part deep dive into SQL Server Always On Failover Cluster Instance (FCI). Before any wizard screens, before any PowerShell, you need the architecture in…
Entra Connect High Availability: Active-Passive Pair With Hot-Standby Failover
Single-server Entra Connect is a single point of failure. The server dies, sync stops; password changes can’t flow to the cloud; new users don’t appear in M365. For most environments…