Jump to content

Featured Replies

Posted

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:

 

  • 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

 

largevv2px999.png.059d460e9dff3bd941c1be0fe380af1a.png

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

largevv2px999.png.6c000e1b95732ccf1ec2d630eb0ed919.png

 

 

 

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...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...