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: SQL Server
SQL Always On Availability Groups Part 6: Verify AG Replication + Dashboard
The AG is built (Part 5). Now we verify it actually works: replication is happening, the secondary is receiving log records, reads work on the secondary (Enterprise readable secondary feature),…
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 4: Enable Always On + Create the Database
SQL Server is installed on both nodes (Part 2) and the WSFC is up (Part 3). Two more prerequisites before we can build the AG itself: Enable the Always On…
SQL Always On Availability Groups Part 3: Configure Windows Failover Cluster
SQL Server Always On Availability Groups require a Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) underneath. The AG itself doesn’t move shared storage around — it replicates databases. But the cluster service…
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…
SQL Server FCI Part 13 of 13: Scaling Down & Advanced Cluster Management
The grand finale. Twelve parts of building — this part is about tearing down gracefully when nodes need to be replaced or decommissioned. Plus advanced cluster moves: shuffling individual disks,…
SQL Server FCI Part 12 of 13: Migrating Data & Performing Manual Failover
3-node FCI is built. Now we use it. This part covers the real-world “go-live” flow: migrate a database from a legacy standalone SQL Server into AOFCI via backup/restore, then perform…
SQL Server FCI Part 11 of 13: Installing SQL Server & SSMS on the Third Node
Node-03 is in the Windows cluster (Part 10) but has no SQL binaries. This part installs SQL Server in Add Node mode on Node-03 — functionally identical to Part 7…
SQL Server FCI Part 10 of 13: Validating & Adding Node-03 to the Cluster
Node-03 prepared in Part 9. Now we formally add it to the Windows Failover Cluster as a voting member. Short post — the Add Node wizard does most of the…
SQL Server FCI Part 9 of 13: Adding the Third Node (Node-03) — OS & Storage Prep
Two-node FCI works. Tested it. But the design from Part 1 reserved a third node IP — this part builds it. The work splits into two posts: Part 9 (this…