Saturday, November 30, 2024

Differences between always on and fail-over cluster - in brief

The main difference between Always On and failover cluster is the level at which they provide high availability and disaster recovery: 

Always On

Provides high availability and disaster recovery at the SQL database level. Always On availability groups (AAG) do not require shared storage. 

Failover cluster

Provides high availability for applications and services by using a group of independent servers. If one server fails, another server in the cluster can take over its workload. Failover clusters require some form of shared storage. 

Here are some other differences between Always On and failover cluster: 

 

How they work

Always On failover cluster instances (FCIs) work on the server-instance level, while failover clusters work on the server level. 

 

How they use shared storage

FCIs require shared storage, while AAGs do not. 

 

How they handle failover

FCIs use Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) to handle failover, while AAGs have replication settings. 

 

How they provide remote disaster recovery

FCIs can use AAGs to provide remote disaster recovery at the database level.


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