SQL 2012 Standard - AlwaysOn FCI - Single point of contact?

Question

I am looking at HA options for SQL 2012 Standard.
I like the look of AlwaysOn FCI. I am using a SAN, so I think I can meet all of the requirements, but one of the applications I am looking at cannot have an alternative DB configured, only a single database location.
With FCI, is there any way to create a single name (ie SQLCluster01.domain.com) which will respond whichever node is up?
If not, is there any other way of creating a high availability access point for the databases?

High availability and load balancing are different things. Which are you trying to accomplish? — joeqwerty, Mar 24 '16 at 19:45

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 24 '16 at 21:37

1

When you setup AlwaysOn, it is backed by Windows Clustering. As part of the setup you'll create a Cluster IP Address and host name and that is how you will connect to the active instance. The IP will move depending on multiple factors in Windows Clustering and AlwaysOn.

This is only for fail over, if you want load balancing you'll have to look at AlwaysOn AGs and your options there.

answered Mar 24 '16 at 21:37

Zypher

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I am using Windows 2008 R2 Standard so do not have Windows Clustering. Are there any other options? Any third party tools that can achieve a similar result? – mwiggs Mar 30 '16 at 18:36

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 24 '16 at 22:14

With an FCI, there is only one SQL instance (as opposed to an Availability Group in which you have multiple instances participating in a primary/secondary relationship). You connect to it via the cluster name that does the right thing (i.e. routes the request to whichever node in the cluster currently owns the instance).

SQL 2012 Standard - AlwaysOn FCI - Single point of contact?

2 Answers2