Aag Interview Questions

When I tried to create a new Availability Group in SQLServer Management Studio, I saw that “New Availability Group Wizard” is grayedout and I am not able to proceed further to configure Availability Group. What couldbe the reason for this?

  • You need to launch SQL Server Configuration Manager then open SQL Server service property.
  • Here you can see the AlwaysOn High Availability tab. Click on this tab.
  • You can see the Windows cluster name here if you have enabled the cluster feature. As we know Windows cluster is mandatory for AlwaysOn. If you haven’t configured a Windows cluster then first you need to configure it in order to enable AlwaysOn High Availability.
  • Once you will enable it, the Cluster Group name will appear in this property window and the grayed-out option “Enable AlwaysOn Availability Group” will be enabled. Just click on this option and click the OK button.
  • You need to restart the service to apply this change on the SQL Server Instance.
  • Q1: Why we need to establish a High Availability and Disaster Recovery Plan in large companies?

    Being interviewed for a SQL Server Database Administrator position, and now interviewing candidates for that role, questions related to the High Availability and Disaster Recovery solutions in SQL Server take the large weight of the overall interview questions, as it reflects your advanced knowledge and experience in the SQL Server administration field.

    This is due to the fact that Always On Availability Group feature works based on having dedicated storage for each replica without having shared storage between the replicas.

    No failover process will be performed in case of any database issue, such as data loss or database corruption, unless the Database Level Health Detection feature is enabled.

    But in the Always On Availability Groups, each node will have its own resources, with no resource sharing concept

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    Can we configure Availability Groups withoutconfiguring Availability Group Listeners?

    Answer- Yes, we can configure an Availability Group without configuring listeners. Listeners are configured to make databases connections irrespective of their replica status.

    Can you explain Availability Group Listeners?

    Answer – The Availability Group Listener is a virtual network name that we use to make connections to the databases whether it is running from a primary replica or secondary replica after failover.

    Can we add a new database to an existing AvailabilityGroup?

    Answer – We can easily add new databases to an existing Availability Group. First, we need to prepare the secondary database by taking the full backup and subsequent transaction log backup then restore it on the secondary replicas in no recovery mode. Then we can right click on Availability Group name to launch the Add Database wizard. We should follow all required steps to proceed with this wizard. Once completed, your new database will be added to the identified Availability Group. You can read this whole process in detail in this article: How to Add New Database to Existing Availability Group?

    What is the difference between AlwaysOn Failover ClusterInstances and AlwaysOn Availability Groups (AOAG)?

    Answer – Please have a look at the main differences between both AlwaysOn solutions:

  • AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instance needs shared storage between all of the nodes in the cluster. Whereas AlwaysOn Availability Groups do not require shared disk storage for the server hosting the SQL Server.
  • AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instance is available on both SQL Server Standard and Enterprise Edition whereas we need Enterprise Edition to configure SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups until SQL Server 2014. There is now an option to create a basic Availability Group with SQL Server 2016 Standard edition, but it has lot of limitations.
  • SQL Server AlwaysOn Failover Clustered Instances work at an instance level whereas Availability Group works at a database level or for a set of databases.
  • We cannot use AlwaysOn Failover Clustered Instances while installing standalone instances whereas Availability Groups can be configured on both standalone as well as SQL Server Clustered Instances.
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