SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance Archives

How to use Azure Site Recovery (ASR) to replicate a Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) that uses SIOS DataKeeper for cluster storage

October 14, 2022 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

How to use Azure Site Recovery (ASR) to replicate a Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) that uses SIOS DataKeeper for cluster storage

Intro

So you have built a SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance (FCI), or maybe an SAP ASCS/ERS cluster in Azure. Each node of the cluster resides in a different Availability Zone (AZ), or maybe you have strict latency requirements and are using Placement Proximity Groups (PPG) and your nodes all reside in the same Availability Set. Regardless of the scenario, you now have a much higher level of availability for your business critical application than if you were just running a single instance.

Now that you have high availability (HA) covered, what are you going to do for disaster recovery? Regional disasters that take out multiple AZs are rare, but as recent history has shown us, Mother Nature can really pack a punch. You want to be prepared should an entire region go offline.

Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is Microsoft’s disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) offering that allows you to replicate entire VMs from one region to another. It can also replicate virtual machines and physical servers from on-prem into Azure, but for the purpose of this blog post we will focus on the Azure Region-to-Region DR capabilities.

Setting up Azure Site Recovery

We are going to assume you have already built your cluster using SIOS DataKeeper. If not, here are some pointers to help get you started.

Failover Cluster Instances with SQL Server on Azure VMs

SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition for the SAP ASCS/SCS cluster share disk

We are also going to assume you are familiar with Azure Site Recovery. Instead of yet another guide on setting up ASR, I suggest you read the latest documentation from Microsoft. This article will focus instead on some things you may not have considered and the specific steps required to fix your cluster after a failover to a different subnet.

Paired Regions

Before you start down the DR path, you should be aware of the concept of Azure Paired Regions. Every Region in Azure has a preferred DR Region. If you want to learn more about Paired Regions, the documentation provides a great background. There are some really good benefits of using your paired region, but it’s really up to you to decide on what region you want to use to host your DR site.

Cloud Witness Location

When you originally built your cluster you had to choose a witness type for your quorum. You may have selected a File Share Witness or a Cloud Witness. Typically either of those witness types should reside in an AZ that is separate from your cluster nodes.

However, when you consider that, in the event of a disaster, your entire cluster will be running in your DR region, there is a better option. You should use a cloud witness, and place it in your DR region. By placing your cloud witness in your DR region, you provide resiliency not only for local AZ failures, but it also protects you should the entire region fail and you have to use ASR to recover your cluster in the DR region. Through the magic of Dynamic Quorum and Dynamic Witness, you can be sure that even if your DR region goes offline temporarily, it will not impact your production cluster.

Multi-VM Consistency

When using ASR to replicate a cluster, it is important to enable Multi-VM Consistency to ensure that each cluster node’s recovery point is from the same point in time. That ensures that the DataKeeper block level replication occurring between the VMs will be able to continue after recovery without requiring a complete resync.

Crash Consistent Recovery Points

Application consistent recovery points are not supported in replicated clusters. When configuring the ASR replication options do not enable application consistent recovery points.

Keep IP Address After Failover?

When using ASR to replicate to your DR site there is a way to keep the IP address of the VMs the same. Microsoft described it in the article entitled Retain IP addresses during failover. If you can keep the IP address the same after failover it will simplify the recovery process since you won’t have to fix any cluster IP addresses or DataKeeper mirror endpoints, which are based on IP addresses.

However, in my experience, I have never seen anyone actually follow the guidance above, so recovering a cluster in a different subnet will require a few additional steps after recovery before you can bring the cluster online.

Your First Failover Attempt

Recovery Plan

Because you are using Multi-VM Consistency, you have to failover your VMs using a Recovery Plan. The documentation provides pretty straightforward guidance on how to do that. A Recovery Plan groups the VMs you want to recover together to ensure they all failover together. You can even add multiple groups of VMs to the same Recovery Plan to ensure that your entire infrastructure fails over in an orderly fashion.

A Recovery Plan can also launch post recovery scripts to help the failover complete the recovery successfully. The steps I describe below can all be scripted out as part of your Recovery Plan, thereby fully automating the complete recovery process. We will not be covering that process in this blog post, but Microsoft documents this process.

Static IP Addresses

As part of the recovery process you want to make sure the new VMs have static IP addresses. You will have to adjust the interface properties in the Azure Portal so that the VM always uses the same address. If you want to add a public IP address to the interface you should do so at this time as well.

Network Configuration

After the replicated VMs are successfully recovered in the DR site, the first thing you want to do is verify basic connectivity. Is the IP configuration correct? Are the instances using the right DNS server? Is name resolution functioning correctly? Can you ping the remote servers?

If there are any problems with network communications then the rest of the steps described below will be bound to fail. Don’t skip this step!

Load Balancer

As you probably know, clusters in Azure require you to configure a load balancer for client connectivity to work. The load balancer does not fail over as part of the Recovery Plan. You need to build a new load balancer based on the cluster that now resides in this new vNet. You can do this manually or script this as part of your Recovery Plan to happen automatically.

Network Security Groups

Running in this new subnet also means that you have to specify what Network Security Group you want to apply to these instances. You have to make sure the instances are able to communicate across the required ports. Again, you can do this manually, but it would be better to script this as part of your Recovery Plan.

Fix the IP Cluster Addresses

If you are unable to make the changes described earlier to recover your instances in the same subnet, you will have to complete the following steps to update your cluster IP addresses and the DataKeeper addresses for use in the new subnet.

Every cluster has a core cluster IP address. What you will see if you launch the WSFC UI after a failover is that the cluster won’t be able to connect. This is because the IP address used by the cluster is not valid in the new subnet.

If you open the properties of that IP Address resource you can change the IP address to something that works in the new subnet. Make sure to update the Network and Subnet Mask as well.

Once you fix that IP Address you will have to do the same thing for any other cluster address that you use in your cluster resources.

Fix the DataKeeper Mirror Addresses

SIOS DataKeeper mirrors use IP addresses as mirror endpoints. These are stored in the mirror and mirror job. If you recover a DataKeeper based cluster in a different subnet, you will see that the mirror comes up in a Resync Pending state. You will also notice that the Source IP and the Target IP reflect the original subnet, not the subnet of the DR site.

Fixing this issue involves running a command from SIOS called CHANGEMIRRORENDPOINTS. The usage for CHANGEMIRRORENDPOINTS is as follows.

emcmd <NEW source IP> CHANGEMIRRORENDPOINTS <volume letter> <ORIGINAL target IP> <NEW source IP> <NEW target IP>

In our example, the command and output looked like this.

After the command runs, the DataKeeper GUI will be updated to reflect the new IP addresses as shown below. The mirror will also go to a mirroring state.

Conclusions

You have now successfully configured and tested disaster recovery of your business critical applications using a combination of SIOS DataKeeper for high availability and Azure Site Recovery for disaster recovery. If you have questions, or would like to consult with SIOS to help you design and implement high availability and disaster recovery for your business critical applications like SQL Server, SAP ASCS and ERS, SAP HANA, Oracle or other business critical applications, please reach out to us.

Reproduced with permission from SIOS

How To Extend Your Existing SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance To The Cloud For Disaster Recovery

June 17, 2021 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

How To Extend Your Existing SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance To The Cloud For Disaster Recovery

Typically I point them to this DataKeeper documentation when someone asks me how to do extend existing SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance to the Cloud for Disaster Recovery.

This first document talks about extending the cluster and adding a 3rd node to the existing cluster. That’s fine if your cluster supports three nodes. But if you are using SQL Server Standard Edition, Microsoft limits you to a 2-node cluster. In the case of a 2-node cluster. you can still replicate to a 3rd node. Bear in mind the recovery will be more of a manual process. This process is described here.

People typically read these instructions and get a little worried. They feel like they would be performing open heart surgery on their cluster. It really is more like changing your shirt! You are simply replacing the Cluster Disk resource with a DataKeeper Volume resource. As you’ll see in the video below the process takes just a few seconds.

The code demonstrated in the video is show below.

Stop-ClusterGroup SQLServerGroup
Remove-ClusterResource -Name "Cluster Disk 1"
Set-Disk -Number 4 -IsOffline $False
Set-Disk -Number 4 -IsReadOnly $False
Import-Module -Name Storage
Set-Partition -DiskNumber 4 
-PartitionNumber 1 -NewDriveLetter X
New-DataKeeperMirror -SourceIP 10.0.2.100 
-SourceVolume X -TargetIP 10.0.1.10 -TargetVolume X -SyncType Sync
New-DataKeeperJob -JobName "x drive" 
-JobDescription "sql data" -Node1Name primary.datakeeper.local 
-Node1IP 10.0.2.100 -Node1Volume x 
-Node2Name dr.datakeeper.local -Node2IP 10.0.1.10 
-Node2Volume X -SyncType Sync
Add-ClusterResource -Name "DataKeeper Volume X" 
-ResourceType "DataKeeper Volume" -Group "SQLServerGroup"
Get-ClusterResource "DataKeeper Volume X" | Set-ClusterParameter 
VolumeLetter X
Get-ClusterResource -Name 'SQLServer' | Add-ClusterResourceDependency 
-Provider 'DataKeeper Volume X'
Start-ClusterGroup SQLServerGroup

After you run that code don’t forget you also need to click on Manage Shared Volumes to add the backup node to the DataKeeper job as shown in the video.

If you have SQL Server Enterprise Edition then the final step would be to install SQL Server in the DR node and choose add node to existing cluster.

If you are using SQL Server Standard Edition then your job is done. You would simply follow these instructions to access you data on the 3rd node and then mount the replicated databases.

These directions are applicable whether your DR node is in the Cloud or your own DR site.

About Using Amazon FSX for SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance

February 14, 2021 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

Using Amazon FSX for SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance – What You Need To Know!

If you are considering deploying your own Microsoft SQL Server instances in AWS EC2, you have some decisions to make regarding the resiliency of the solution. Sure, AWS will offer you a 99.99% SLA on your Compute resources if you deploy two or more instances across different availability zones. But don’t be fooled, there are a lot of other factors you need to consider when calculating your true application availability. I recently blogged about how to calculate your application availability in the cloud. You probably should have a quick read of that article before you move on.

When it comes to ensuring your Microsoft SQL Server instance is highly available, it really comes down to two basic choices: Always On Availability Group (AG) or SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance (FCI). If you are reading this article I’m making an assumption you are well aware of both of these options and are seriously considering using a SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance instead of a SQL Server Always On AG.

Benefits Of A Microsoft SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance

The following list summarize what AWS says are the benefits of a SQL Server FCI:

FCI is generally preferable over AG for SQL Server high availability deployments when the following are priority concerns for your use case:

License cost efficiency: You need the Enterprise Edition license of SQL Server to run AGs, whereas you only need the Standard Edition license to run FCIs. This is typically 50–60% less expensive than the Enterprise Edition. Although you can run a Basic version of AGs on Standard Edition starting from SQL Server 2016, it carries the limitation of supporting only one database per AG. This can become a challenge when dealing with applications that require multiple databases like SharePoint.

Instance-level protection versus database-level protection: With FCI, the entire instance is protected – if the primary node becomes unavailable, the entire instance is moved to the standby node. This takes care of the SQL Server logins, SQL Server Agent jobs, certificates, etc. that are stored in the system databases, which are physically stored in shared storage. With AG, on the other hand, only the databases in the group are protected, and system databases cannot be added to an AG – only user databases are allowed. It is the database administrator’s responsibility to replicate changes to system objects on all AG replicas. This leaves the possibility of human error causing the database to become inaccessible to the application.

DTC feature support: If you’re using SQL Server 2012 or 2014, and your application uses Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC), you are not able to use an AG as it is not supported. Use FCI in this situation.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/storage/simplify-your-microsoft-sql-server-high-availability-deployments-using-amazon-fsx-for-windows-file-server/

Challenges With FCI In The Cloud

Of course. The challenge with building an FCI that spans availability zones is the lack of a shared storage device that is normally required. Because the nodes of the cluster are distributed across multiple datacenters, a traditional SAN is not a viable option for shared storage. That leaves us with a two choices for cluster storage: 3rd party storage class resources like SIOS DataKeeper or the new Amazon FSx.

Let’s take a look at what you need to know before you make your choice.

SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT

As I wrote in how to calculate your application availability, your overall application SLA is only as good as your weakest link. In this case, the FSx SLA of 99.9%.

Normally 99.99% availability represents the starting point of what is considered “highly available”. This is what AWS promises you for your compute resources when two or more are deployed in different availability zones.

In case you didn’t know the difference between three nines and four nines…

99.9% availability allows for 43.83 minutes of downtime per month
99.99% availability allows for only 4.38 minutes of downtime per month

By hosting your cluster storage on FSx despite your 99.99% compute availability, your overall application availability will be 99.9%. In contrast, EBS volumes that span availability zones, such as in a DataKeeper deployment, qualifies for the 99.99% SLA at both the storage and compute layers. This means your overall application availability is 99.99%.

STORAGE LOCATION

When configuring FSx for high availability, you will want to enable multi-AZ support. By enabling multi-AZ you have an effectively have a “preferred” AZ and a “standby” AZ. When you deploy your SQL Server FCI nodes you will want to distribute those nodes across the same AZs.

Now in normal situations, you will want to make sure the active cluster node resides in the same AZ as the preferred FSx storage node. This is to minimize the distance and latency to your storage. But also to minimize the costs associated with data transfer across AZs. As specified in the FSx price guide, “Standard data transfer fees apply for inter-AZ or inter-region access to file systems.”

In the unfortunate circumstance where you have a SQL Server FCI failure, but not a FSx failure, there is no mechanism to tie both the storage and compute together. In the event that FSx fails over, it will automatically fail back to the primary availability zone. However, best practices dictate SQL FCI remain running on the secondary node until root cause analysis is performed and fail back is typically scheduled to occur during maintenance periods. This leaves you in a situation where your storage resides in a different AZ, which will incur additional costs. Currently the cost for transferring data across AZs, both ingress and egress, is $0.01/GB.

Without keeping a close eye on the state of your FSx and SQL Server FCI, you may not even be aware that they are running in different regions until you see the data transfer charge at the end of the month.

In contrast, in a configuration that use SIOS DataKeeper, the storage failover is part of the SQL Server FCI recovery, ensuring that the storage always fails over with the SQL Server instance. This ensures SQL Server is always reading and writing to the EBS volumes that are directly attached to the active node. Keep in mind, DataKeeper will incur a data transfer cost associated with write operations which are replicated between AZs or regions. This data transfer cost can be minimized with the use of compression available in DataKeeper.

CONTROLLING FAILOVER

In an FSx multi-subnet configuration, there is a preferred availability zone and a standby availability. Should the FSx file server in the preferred availability zone experience a failure, the file server in the standby AZ will recover. AWS reports that this recovery time takes about 30 seconds with standard shares. With the use of continuously available file shares, Microsoft reports this failover time can be closer to 15 seconds. During this failover time, there is a brownout that occurs where reads and writes are paused, but will continue once recovery completes.

FSx multi-site has automatic failback enabled. This means that for every unplanned failover of FSx, you also have an unplanned failback. In contrast, typically when a SQL Server FCI experience an unplanned failover you would either just leave it running on the secondary or schedule a failback after hours or during the next maintenance period.

SQL SERVER ANALYSIS SERVICES CLUSTER NOT SUPPORTED WITH FSX

If you want to cluster SSAS, you will need a clustered disk resource like SIOS DataKeeper. The How to Cluster SQL Server Analysis Server white paper clearly states that SMB cannot be used and that cluster drives with drive letters must be used. In contrast, the DataKeeper Volume resource presents itself as a clustered disk and can be used with SSAS.

Summary

While FSx certainly can make sense for typical SMB uses like Windows user files and other non-critical services where 99.9% availability SLA suffices, FSx is an excellent option If you application requires high availability (99.99%) or HA/DR solutions that also span regions, the SIOS DataKeeper is the right fit.

Reproduced with permission from Clusteringformeremortals

Configure SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance On Azure Virtual Machines

April 4, 2019 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

Configure SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance On Azure Virtual Machines With Msdtc #Sql #Azure #Msdtc

You probably know that we have included plenty of step-by-step guides for building SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) on Azure, from SQL Server 2008 through the latest. Here are some links to get you started. But really there is very little difference in the configuration between the different versions of Windows and SQL Server. So I think you will be able to figure it out regardless of what versions you use.

STEP-BY-STEP: HOW TO CONFIGURE A SQL SERVER FAILOVER CLUSTER INSTANCE (FCI) IN MICROSOFT AZURE IAAS #SQLSERVER #AZURE #SANLESS

STEP-BY-STEP: HOW TO CONFIGURE A SQL SERVER 2008 R2 FAILOVER CLUSTER INSTANCE IN AZURE

What I have not addressed is what to do about MSDTC. Microsoft addressed that in this article posted here.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sql_pfe_blog/2018/07/05/configure-sql-server-failover-cluster-instance-on-azure-virtual-machines-with-msdtc

However, that article/video only addresses SQL Server 2016 and later. The good news is that most of that guidance can be applied to SQL Server 2008/2012/2014. Until I have time to do a proper step-by-step guide I wanted to jot down some basic notes, more as a reminder to myself. However, you might find this information useful as well in the meantime.

The steps below assume you have already created a SQL Server FCI in Azure and clustered the DTC resource. Reference the guides above for the details on those steps. The steps below really just detail the load balancer configuration required in Azure to make this work.

Create Load Balancer For MSDTC

The MSDTC resource will require its own load balancer. Instead of creating a new load balancer, we will add a new frontend to the load balancer that should already be configured for the SQL Server FCI. Of course this frontend IP address should match the cluster IP address associated with the clustered MSDTC resource.

For the backend pool just reuse the existing pool that you created that contains the SQL cluster nodes.

You will need to create a new health probe dedicated to the MSDTC resource. The port you use has to be different than the one you used for the SQL resource. Don’t use 59999. Maybe use something like 49999.

The final step is to create the load balancing rule for MSDTC. Create a new rule and reference the MSDTC frontend that we just created and the existing backend. Next we need to create a new load balancing rule. MSDTC uses ephemeral ports, which is a big range of ports. As you create the rule, you have to select the box that says “HA Ports”. Finally, make sure Direct Server Return is enabled.

Update MSDTC Cluster IP Resource

Works like the SQL Server Cluster IP address. We need to run a Powershell command that will for the MSDTC cluster IP resource to respond to the health probe we just created that probes port 49999. It also sets the subnet mask of that MSDTC cluster IP address to 255.255.255.255 to avoid IP address conflicts with the load balancer frontend we setup that shares the same address.

# Define variables $ClusterNetworkName = “”  
# the cluster network name (Use Get-ClusterNetwork on 
Windows Server 2012 of higher to find the name of the MSDTC resource) 
$IPResourceName = “”  
# the IP Address resource name of the MSDTC resource  $ILBIP = “”  
# the IP Address of the Internal Load Balancer (ILB) and MSDTC resource 
Import-Module FailoverClusters 
# If you are using Windows Server 2012 or higher: 
Get-ClusterResource $IPResourceName | Set-ClusterParameter 
-Multiple @{Address=$ILBIP;ProbePort=49999;SubnetMask="255.255.255.255";
Network=$ClusterNetworkName;EnableDhcp=0} 
# If you are using Windows Server 2008 R2 use this:  
#cluster res $IPResourceName /priv enabledhcp=0 address=$ILBIP probeport=59999  
subnetmask=255.255.255.255

Confirm It Is Working!

You can use DTCPing or go into Component Services and look under Computers>My Computers>Distributed Transaction Coordinator where you should see a local DTC and a clustered DTC. Any distributed transactions should appear in the clustered DTC, not the local DTC. Check out this video for an example of how to create a distributed transaction for testing.

Next Steps

This is a quick and dirty guide. For the experienced user it should get your MSDTC resource up and running in Azure. I’ll be publishing a detailed step-by-step guide in the near future. In the meantime, if you get stuck don’t hesitate to reach out to me on Twitter @daveberm

Achieving SQL Server High Availability Disaster Recovery With DataKeeper

March 26, 2019 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

Achieve SQL Server High Availability, Disaster Recovery With A Mix Of Always On Availability Groups And SANless SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances

Introduction

The topic of mixing SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) with Always On Availability Groups (AG) is pretty well documented. However, most of the available documentation documents configurations that assume the SQL Server FCI portion of the solution utilizes shared storage. What if I want to build a SANless SQL Server FCI using Storage Spaces Direct (S2D), can I still add a SQL Server AG to the mix? Unfortunately, the answer to this question is no. As of today, this combination of S2D based SQL Server FCI and Always On AG is not supported. I previously blogged about this S2D limitation here.

However, the good news is you CAN build a SANless SQL Server FCI with SIOS DataKeeper and still leverage Always On AG for things like readable secondaries. You still have to abide by the same rules that apply when mixing traditional SAN based SQL Server FCI and Always On AGs, but most part to achieve SQL Server high availability is about the same.

DataKeeper Synchronous replication is commonly used between nodes in the same data center or cloud region, but you may want to replicate asynchronously to an additional node in a different region for disaster recovery. In this case, if you ever do have to bring the DR node online after an unexpected failure, you will have to scrap the Always On AG configurations and reconfigure them. This requirement is very similar to to what Microsoft published here in regards to restoring asynchronous snapshots of SQL Server Always On AGs running inside VMs.

Availability Groups

Essentially, a SANLess SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance with DataKeeper looks like a single instance of SQL Server as far as the Always On Availability Group Wizard is concerned. The configuration of the Always On AG is exactly the same as if you were creating just an Always On AG between two Standalone (non-clustered) SQL Server instances.

The real confusion arise in the fact that in this configuration all the servers reside in the same failover cluster. But the SQL Server FCI is only configured to run only on the cluster nodes where SQL Server was installed as a Clustered SQL Server Instance. The other nodes are in the same cluster. However, SQL is installed on those nodes as a Standalone SQL Server Instance, not a Clustered Instance. It’s a bit confusing. Essentially what is happening is that Always On AG’s leverage the WSFC quorum model and listeners. As such all the AG Replicas need to reside in the same WSFC, even though they typically do not run clustered instances of SQL Server. If you are completely confused that is okay, most people are confused when they first try to wrap their head around this hybrid configuration.

The real benefit in a configuration like this is that a SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance can be a better and more cost effective (more on this later*) High Availability solution than Always On AG in many circumstances, but it lacks the ability to offer a readable secondary replica. Adding an Always On AG readable secondary replica becomes a viable option to address this need. And using SIOS DataKeeper eliminates the need for a SAN for the SQL Server FCI, which opens up the possibility of configuring SQL Server FCIs where nodes reside in different data center, which also means support for SQL Server FCI’s that span Availability Zones in both Azure and AWS.

Please note that pictured below is just one possible configuration. Multiple FCI cluster nodes, multiple AGs and multiple Replicas are all supported. You are only limited by the limits imposed by your version of SQL Server.

This article seems to document the setup steps pretty well. Of course, instead of shared storage for the SQL FCI, you will use SIOS DataKeeper to build the FCI as I document here.

Image result for SQL Server FCI with Availability Groups

Basic Availability Groups

As of SQL Server 2016 a scaled down “Basic Availability Groups” became available in SQL Server Standard Edition, making this configuration possible even in SQL Server Standard Edition. Basic AGs are limited to a single database per Availability Group, a Single Replica (2-nodes). However, they do not support a readable secondary replica so their use cases in this hybrid configuration are very limited.

Distributed Availability Groups

Distributed AGs were introduced in SQL Server 2016 are also supported in this hybrid configuration. Distributed AGs are very similar to regular AGs, but the Replicas do not need to reside in the same cluster, or even in the same Windows Domain. Microsoft documents the the main use cases of Distributed Availability Groups as follows:

Disaster recovery and easier multi-site configurations
Migration to new hardware or configurations, which might include using new hardware or changing the underlying operating systems
Increasing the number of readable replicas beyond eight in a single availability group by spanning multiple availability groups

Image result for distributed availability groups

Summary

If you like the idea of SQL Server FCIs for SQL Server high availability, but want the flexibility of read-only secondary replicas, this hybrid solution might just be the thing you are looking for. Traditional SAN based SQL Server FCIs, and even Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) based FCIs, limit you to a single data center. SIOS DataKeeper frees you from the limits of your SAN and enables configurations such as SQL Server FCI that span Availability Zones or Cloud Regions. It also eliminates the reliance on the SAN, allowing you to leverage locally attached high speed storage devices without giving up your SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance.

* How to Save Money

Earlier I promised I would tell you how to save money by doing this all with SQL Server Standard Edition. If you can live with readable replicas that are point in time based snapshots, you can skip Always On AGs completely and just use the SIOS DataKeeper target side snapshot feature to periodically take an application consistent snapshot of the volumes on the target server without impacting ongoing replication or availability. Here’s how…

http://discover.us.sios.com/rs/siostechnology/images/10-Ways-Save-AlwaysOn-vs-Failover-Clustering.pdf

Create a 2-node SQL Server FCI with SQL Server Standard Edition and save a boatload of money on SQL licenses. And yet still replicate the data to a 3rd node outside the cluster for reporting or DR purposes. If you take a snapshot of the volumes on this third server these snapshots are read-right accessible. This way, you can mount those databases from a standalone instance of SQL Server to run month end reports, copy to archives, or you might even want to use those snapshot to quickly and easily update your QA and Test/Dev environments with the latest SQL data.

I hope you found guide to create to achieve SQL Server high availability, disaster recovery with a mix of Always On Availability Groups and SANless SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances useful.