Component | Prerequisites or Requirements |
Windows Server 2012 R2 | • Availability groups are not supported on Active Directory domain controllers. • Each SQL compute node must be part of a Windows Server Failover Cluster. • Each server that hosts an availability replica must be provisioned with sufficient disk space to host all the databases in the availability group. • A WSFC node can only host one availability replica for a given availability group. On a given WSFC node, one or more instances of SQL Server can host availability replicas for many availability groups. |
SQL Server 2016 | • The instances of SQL Server that host availability replicas for a given availability group must reside on separate nodes of a single WSFC cluster. • Each server instance must be configured with the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2016. • The AlwaysOn Availability Groups feature must be enabled on each server node that will host an availability replica. |
Availability groups | • The number of databases and availability groups you can put on a physical host or individual virtual machine depends on the virtual hardware provisioned and workload of the environment. • Each AlwaysOn Availability replica must be hosted by SQL server instances running on different nodes in the same WSFC cluster. • Each AlwaysOn Availability Group can support one primary replica and up to four secondary replicas. • Be sure to operationally test the environment, including failover scenarios, with a production-like peak-time workload, to validate the environment’s ability to handle the capacity required, and to meet or exceed the application’s SLAs. |
Availability database | • Must be a multi-user database. • Must be a read-write database. A read-only database cannot be added to AlwaysOn Availability Groups. • Cannot be configured for database mirroring. • Cannot belong to any existing availability group. |
Data Center Site | Virtual Machine | Function |
On-Premises | Windows Server 2012 R2 (ms-dc1) | Provides DNS and Active Directory, services |
On-Premises | SQL Server 2016 (ms-sql-db1) | Provides database services |
On-Premises | SQL Server 2016 (ms-sql-db2) | Provides database services |
On-Premises | SQL Server 2016 (ms-sql-wns) | Provides Cluster File Share Witness services |
VMware Cloud Provider Program facility | Windows Server 2012 R2 (ms-dc2) | Provides DNS and Active Directory, services |
VMware Cloud Provider Program facility | SQL Server 2016 (ms-sql-db3) | Provides database services |
VMware Cloud Provider Program facility | SQL Server 2012 (ms-sql-db4) | Provides database services |
VMware Cloud Provider Program facility | nsx-edge-02 | VMware NSX Edge™ device |