Answered Is SQL 2012 supported with Hyper-V Replica

  • Sunday, January 20, 2013 7:44 PM
     
     

    Is it supported to have SQL Server 2012 running within a VM that is replicated using Hyper-V Replica?

    I am aware that if there is a failure at the primary site I would lose any changes that had not replicated.  I am concerned about the database files being in an inconsistent state, thus preventing SQL Server from starting on the failover server.

    Are there any official Microsoft documents stating support (or not) of this use case?

All Replies

  • Monday, January 21, 2013 3:40 PM
     
     

    You can find the answer in this thread: Hyper-V Replica: Is SQL and Exchange supported

  • Monday, January 21, 2013 3:44 PM
    Moderator
     
     Answered

    Hyper-V replica is not application consistent by default.  You can specify what intervals to create application consistent replicas, but those will pause SQL IO via the VSS provider.  Also, all data must be on CSV or cluster LUNs.  no direct storage via iSCSI or Virtual Fiber Adapters will be protected.

    I would use multi-site clustering or Availability Groups for SQL DR.  Hyper-V replica was intended for slowly changing stateless VMs such as web or application servers. 


    Geoff N. Hiten Principal Consultant Microsoft SQL Server MVP

    • Marked As Answer by joemcts2011 Monday, January 21, 2013 5:15 PM
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  • Sunday, March 17, 2013 9:50 PM
     
     

    If multiple SQL VMs are tightly coupled with one another, individual VMs can failover to the disaster recovery (DR) site but SQL high availability (HA) features inside the VM need to be removed and re-configured after VM failover. For this reason the following SQL Server features are not supported on Hyper-VM Replica:

    • Availability Groups
    • Database mirroring
    • Failover Cluster instances
    • Log shipping
    • Replication

    Please check the following Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956893


    Waleed A. Nasser Mohamed