May 27, 2015 at 12:54 pm
So I have found a lot of documents and it seems easy to convert a standalone SQL 2012 Ent server into an always on configuration. Basically add a second server, install clusters, configure always on.
But what I can't find and looking for is the best way to keep the server connection string intact. So if our current connection is to the default instance on ServerA how do you make the always on answer to the connection requests of ServerA. Since the always on gets a name I assume you can't use ServerA again as computer objects would be conflicting. Would you need to rename the ServerA to ServerX and then make the always on as the name ServerA?
Hope this makes sense, but I want ServerA which has a default instance configured to become an always on configuration with the same connection string. Any articles or ideas would be appreciated.
May 27, 2015 at 1:00 pm
You can connect to instanceA as you always do, as it is its own object and really a stand-alone instance. You can do the same to the second new instance. They operate on their own. When you set up the availability group, it will have its own ip as a clustered resource that will point to the primary instance. So, if you want the connection string to failover to the primary instance if there is a failover (which 99% of the time you do) then you connect to the AvailabilityGroup name in your string.
Jared
CE - Microsoft
May 27, 2015 at 1:07 pm
We had an existing SQL Failover Cluster Instance (FCI) that needed to replicate out to a read only reporting server. They wanted that highly available and real-time. They originally wanted a second FCI that was simply using transactional replication. Instead, I injected 2 nodes into the existing cluster and installed another FCI within the same Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC). We then set up an availability group to synchronously mirror the data. However, no connection string will ever use the AvailabilityGroup name. It only goes to the main instance for OLTP or the other for reporting. We used FCIs for high availability and AlwaysOn Availability Groups for the mirror/replication (whatever you want to call it).
Jared
CE - Microsoft
May 27, 2015 at 1:25 pm
I understand that I could connect to each instance, but its not highly available then. So I want to use the availability group name to connect. The issue arises because I want to try and make an application more highly available, but I don't have a means to change the connection string. So when I moved it from 08 to 12 I decommissioned the server and rebuilt with same name during an outage window. So Trying to determine if I need to do the same for always on, or if I can avoid a lengthy outage window and assume the name of the current server for connection string purposes.
May 27, 2015 at 1:55 pm
Well, you can't change the instance name, but you can change the servername and then create the AG name with the old server name?
Jared
CE - Microsoft
May 27, 2015 at 2:02 pm
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