SQL Server 2012 High Availability

Achieve required 9’s with new SQL Server AlwaysOn.

AlwaysOn Availability Groups

• Enhances the capabilities of Database Mirroring and helps ensure availability of application databases.

• Provides an integrated set of options including automatic and manual failover of a group of databases, support for up to four secondaries including two synchronous secondaries and seamless application failover using availability group listener.

• Simplify deployment of high availability using integrated configuration wizard.

AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances

• Enhance SQL Server Failover Clustering and support multi-site clustering across subnet which helps enable cross-datacenter failover of SQL Server instances. Fast and predictable instance failover is another key benefit which helps ensure fast application recovery.

• Execute planned failover with confidence using the integrated failover wizard.

Improve analytical performance

• Helps control when a failover should happen and eliminates false failover of instances and databases.

• Combine real-time updates with MOLAP-class performance.

Deployment and Management

• Automate deployment using AlwaysOn PowerShell cmdlets which provides a powerful scripting option.

• Easily monitor the high availability configuration using AlwaysOn dashboard which provides a visual view of the configuration health and recommendations for corrective action.

• Manage availability groups across the enterprise using Microsoft System Center.

Achieve increased hardware utilization and performance using AlwaysOn Active Secondaries.

AlwaysOn Active Secondaries

• Eliminate idle secondary hardware.

• Redirect reporting workloads and utilize secondary hardware and free up capacity on the primary server for improved performance.

• Get near-real time reports and fast query performance for reporting queries with fast data replication and smart creation of auto-stats.

• Achieve seamless redirection of reporting application to a new secondary using read only routing in the event of a failure.

• Further improve capacity utilization on the secondary by offloading backup jobs to the active secondary.

• Seamlessly restore backups taken on multiple secondaries using Database Recovery Advisor.

Reduce planned downtime and improve 9’s using Windows Server Core and other HA capabilities.

Reduce Planned Downtime

• Reduce the number of OS required OS patches by running SQL Server on Windows Server Core.

• Improve application uptime with support for reindexing of LOB columns and adding of non-null columns as online operations.

• Significantly reduce downtime during patching and upgrades using rolling upgrade capabilities in AlwaysOn.

• Bring applications online faster with failover time in seconds during planned failover.