August 7, 2013 at 8:31 am
Does anyone know if you can have an availability group that has databases on a SQL 2008 R2 failover clustered instance and a 2012 standalone SQL server?
Here is the scenario we want as most of our old applications will not be supported on 2012. We still have some on 2005.
Site 1 (Primary Site):
Failover Cluster 1:
Two nodes each running Windows SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition
This is the traditional cluster with shared storage (active/passive) - we can only afford one replica on the site in terms of storage
This will be automatic failover
Failover Cluster 2:
Two nodes each running Windows SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition
This is the traditional cluster with shared storage (active/passive) - we can only afford one replica on the site in terms of storage
This will be automatic failover
Site 2 (Remote Site): - Planned for DR scenario using alwaysON availability groups
Standalone SQL Server (which of course will be made part of the Windows FC indicated above):
Single server running Windows SQL 2012 Enterprise Edition
We want to use alwaysON to create availability groups for manual failover between sites.
Now, manual failover for Cluster 2 from site 1 to site 2 I believe is feasible.
However, my concern is whether or not 2008 R2 FC is supported with 2012 alwaysOn. Is it possible to create availability groups so I can manually fail from my 2008 clustered instance to site 2?
Thanks You.
August 7, 2013 at 9:31 am
Your scenario is quite complex but I think I can answer your question.
Since the 2008R2 and 2012 clusters are indeed different clusters and for AlwaysOn the remote machine will need to be part of the 2012 machine cluster but not the SQL cluster you will not be able to ALSO join that remote machine to the cluster for the 2008R2 machines. Since it can't join the cluster automatic failover for the SQL 2008R2 is impossible. What you CAN do is install a stand-alone 2008R2 SQL on the remote machine and then either log ship or mirror to it. I would probably use a DNS name to reference the local server and on failover change the DNS destination to the remote system, this would not be necessary for the 2012 failover.
Clear or clear as mud?
CEWII
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