Using Azure as an HA/DR site for SQL 2016

[Alex Mondale]

I wonder if anyone has dabbled with this concept, or if it is economically viable to my customer, which is a "little big shop" that would like to spend $-- for SQL HA and/or DR (probably the latter is the only realistic cost-effective approach across data centers that feature geodiversity). So I'd like to have 3 on-premises instances replicate Async say 3-4x/day (RPO=6-8 hrs) to either IAAS instances that power on the same 3-4x/day to receive replication, or, if SQL Azure supports AlwaysOn, use that for a "target."

Idea would be to use this as a read only DR site in use cases ranging from extended power outages to cratered HQ.

Anything in this scheme that might work with reasonably limited engineering effort? I don't want to add a ton of complexity or cost.

Any ideas or suggestions for reading will be appreciated.

[#2]

Good day,

As you can see in the book online (under the title "THIS TOPIC APPLIES TO") Always On Availability Groups does not supported in Azure SQL Databaseno or Azure SQL Data Warehouse (yet), but you can still use Azure for your Disaster Recovery (DR).

For example, you can configure Always On availability group in Azure VM

In addition you can use replication from local SQL to SQL Server Azure if you want, which is bery useful for lot of cases. For more information check this article

* Of course I cannot advise you, since I am not familiar with your system

[#3]

Hi,

You can use Azure as HA/DR that is the idea of the Hybrid infrastructure and SQL 2016 supports that type of environment, of course, you will need to work on some items before, but this two docs online will help validate if your environment qualifies to implement this Hybrid scenario:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/sqlclassic/virtual-machines-windows-...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/availability-groups/windows/use-the-add-azure-r...

Hope it works.