Background information: We have two physical servers in an FCI with SQL Server 2012 Enterprise(SS2k12) and Windows 2008 R2(W2k8r2) is the OS. We are using a SAN from EMC. The virtual servers are VMware. Current physical servers are old and underpowered and starting to go into year five, without any maintenance agreement in place. Yes, I’m nervous about what could happen.
I’ve been tasked with moving our SS2K12 physical database servers to VMware virtual servers using a Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) with the primary and secondary talking via AlwaysOn Available Group(AOAG).
Once I’ve finished moving everything I need to the VMware world. I next shutdown the physical servers. Can I use the DNS name and IP address from the FCI in the AOAG listener address for database connections?
What if everything goes to h… in a hand basket and I need to power on the physical servers to fall back. I know I’ll need to change the AOAG listener name to something different and with a different IP address. Does anyone think bringing the physical server up in correct order will allow me to use the original DNS name and IP address and make the FCI viable again without me jumping through hoops?
glenn thompson
