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Danimir Ljepava
Hybrid failover rights is a new benefit that allows you to run a license-free Azure SQL Managed Instance when used as a passive DR replica for your SQL Server 2022 licensed under Software Assurance (SA), or using Pay-as-you-go billing option.
How the Hybrid Failover Rights benefit works
The new Hybrid failover rights licensing benefit is technology agnostic. You can use any technology, such is MI link as the most advanced replication technology using Always On, or perhaps LRS, ADF, transactional replication, backup and restore, or similar to setup replication between SQL Server and Managed Instance. As long as you are using Azure SQL Managed Instance only as a passive replica for your SQL Server 2022, you are eligible to apply the new licensing benefit.
Always On technology is known to be the most advanced method of setting up disaster recovery between SQL Servers on-premises. The link feature for Managed Instance is the same – Always On is used for near real-time replication between SQL Server and Azure SQL Managed Instance. The MI link disaster recovery (DR) feature was released in a limited public preview at the time of SQL Server 2022 release.
For precise terms and conditions of the Hybrid failover rights benefit, see the SQL Server licensing terms online in the section “SQL Server – Fail-over Rights”.
Note: There exists a similar benefit “Failover rights” for license free DR when replication is setup between two Managed Instances in Azure, in an auto-failover group. The new “Hybrid failover rights” benefit for SQL Server 2022 should therefore not be confused with “Failover rights” benefit for Azure SQL Managed Instance auto-failover groups.
Activating the benefit
Hybrid failover rights benefit is activated through “Compute + Storage” option of Azure SQL Managed instance in Azure portal by performing the following steps:
Operations on Managed Instance with the benefit activated
To enjoy the benefit on your Managed Instance, the instance needs to be used as passive DR replica of your SQL Server 2022 only, meaning that it cannot be used for reporting or other read-write, or read-only workloads.
You can still perform business continuity related activities such are:
Pricing calculator
You can use Azure pricing calculator to calculate the benefit for your concrete instance compute size and service tier. In the Azure pricing calculator, search for managed instance and ensure that in the “Disaster Recovery” dropdown menu you select “Geo-secondary replicated instance” option, and then select the Failover rights option under SQL License.
Deactivating the benefit
You can deactivate the benefit at any time by taking steps reverse to activation of the benefit. In such case simply choose a different licensing option for your Azure SQL Managed Instance – Pay-as-you-go, or Azure Hybrid Benefit.
Next steps
Discover the link feature as the most powerful mechanism for having a near real-time replica of your SQL Server on Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Continue reading...
How the Hybrid Failover Rights benefit works
The new Hybrid failover rights licensing benefit is technology agnostic. You can use any technology, such is MI link as the most advanced replication technology using Always On, or perhaps LRS, ADF, transactional replication, backup and restore, or similar to setup replication between SQL Server and Managed Instance. As long as you are using Azure SQL Managed Instance only as a passive replica for your SQL Server 2022, you are eligible to apply the new licensing benefit.
Always On technology is known to be the most advanced method of setting up disaster recovery between SQL Servers on-premises. The link feature for Managed Instance is the same – Always On is used for near real-time replication between SQL Server and Azure SQL Managed Instance. The MI link disaster recovery (DR) feature was released in a limited public preview at the time of SQL Server 2022 release.
For precise terms and conditions of the Hybrid failover rights benefit, see the SQL Server licensing terms online in the section “SQL Server – Fail-over Rights”.
Note: There exists a similar benefit “Failover rights” for license free DR when replication is setup between two Managed Instances in Azure, in an auto-failover group. The new “Hybrid failover rights” benefit for SQL Server 2022 should therefore not be confused with “Failover rights” benefit for Azure SQL Managed Instance auto-failover groups.
Activating the benefit
Hybrid failover rights benefit is activated through “Compute + Storage” option of Azure SQL Managed instance in Azure portal by performing the following steps:
- Navigate to your Azure SQL Managed Instance in Azure portal
- On the left-hand side select the “Compute + Storage” menu option
- In the SQL Server license section, select the “Hybrid failover rights” benefit
- To enjoy the benefit, please confirm that your SQL MI will be used solely as a passive DR replica.
- Click on Apply
Operations on Managed Instance with the benefit activated
To enjoy the benefit on your Managed Instance, the instance needs to be used as passive DR replica of your SQL Server 2022 only, meaning that it cannot be used for reporting or other read-write, or read-only workloads.
You can still perform business continuity related activities such are:
- Taking copy-only backups
- Running consistency checks like DBCC_CHECKDB
- Connecting monitoring solutions or querying related DMVs
- Running DR drills
Pricing calculator
You can use Azure pricing calculator to calculate the benefit for your concrete instance compute size and service tier. In the Azure pricing calculator, search for managed instance and ensure that in the “Disaster Recovery” dropdown menu you select “Geo-secondary replicated instance” option, and then select the Failover rights option under SQL License.
Deactivating the benefit
You can deactivate the benefit at any time by taking steps reverse to activation of the benefit. In such case simply choose a different licensing option for your Azure SQL Managed Instance – Pay-as-you-go, or Azure Hybrid Benefit.
Next steps
Discover the link feature as the most powerful mechanism for having a near real-time replica of your SQL Server on Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Continue reading...