When deploying Microsoft SQL Server 2016 AlwaysOn Availability Groups, you can connect your application or users to the appropriate database replica using an availability group listener. An availability group listener is a virtual network name that is able to direct read-write requests to the primary replica and, if configured, read-only requests to the read-only secondary replica. VMware recommends always creating an availability group listener when deploying AlwaysOn Availability Groups on a vSphere platform. The availability group listener enables a client’s connections to connect to an appropriate replica without knowing the name of the physical instance of the SQL Server installation. Therefore, the client connection string does not need to be modified in case of a failover.

 

For more information about creating an availability group listener, see Prerequisites, Restrictions, and Recommendations for AlwaysOn Availability Groups (SQL Server) at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff878487.aspx.