This is going to be a multi-part post, based on a very recent deployment.

I had to urgently build an AlwaysOn Availability Group and Listener in Azure on SQL Server 2014. The only issue was,  I have limited Azure and SQL knowledge. I can maintain and install, and create a few scripts here and there. But not enough to be called a DBA or Cloud Boff. However, I decided this would be an awesome thing to learn how to do. So, during the course of man flu, about 40 hours of crunch time, I can now install, configure and maintain a SQL AlwaysON AG with Listener on Azure.

So, lets get cracking.

Prerequisites:

• 1x Domain Controller
• 1x Service account for the SQL Server Service and for the SQL Server Agent Service
• 1x Delegated permissions on AD for the cluster to create computer objects.
• 1x Load balancer (on Azure)
• 2x Windows Servers installed with a minimum of SQL 2012 installed
• Shared location on each node (this will be used for adding DBs to the using a “Full” model)

Some of these pre-requisites are listed in this post – so don’t worry if you don’t know how to do certain things.

Continue reading Install and configure SQL AlwaysON AG with Listener on Azure →