# Create an Always On Availability Group with SQL Server 2014 replica virtual machines

Solution overview

This template uses the PowerShell DSC extension to deploy a fully configured Always On Availability Group with SQL Server 2014 replicas.

This template creates the following resources:

• 1 Virtual Network
• 4 Azure storage accounts
  • 1 for domain controller virtual machines
  • 1 for SQL Server virtual machines
  • 1 for Failover Cluster File Share Witness
  • 1 for deployment diagnostics
• 1 internal load balancer
• 1 external load balancer
• 3 virtual machines in a Windows Server Cluster
  • 2 SQL Server 2014 Enterprise edition replicas with an availability group
  • 1 virtual machine is a File Share Witness for the Cluster
• 2 domain controller virtual machines replicas for a new Forest and Domain
• 2 Availability Sets

  • 1 for domain controller virtual machines
    

  • 1 for SQL Server and Witness virtual machines
    

• 1 public IP addresses for RDP access

Tags: SQL Server, AlwaysOn, High Availability, Cluster

Notes

• File Share Witness and SQL Server VMs are from the same Availability Set and currently there is a constraint for mixing DS-Series machine, DS_v2-Series machine and GS-Series machine into the same Availability Set. If you decide to have DS-Series SQL Server VMs you must also have a DS-Series File Share Witness; If you decide to have GS-Series SQL Server VMs you must also have a GS-Series File Share Witness; If you decide to have DS_v2-Series SQL Server VMs you must also have a DS_v2-Series File Share Witness.

• The default settings for SQL Server storage are to deploy using premium storage, the AD witness uses a P10 Disk and the SQL VMs use P30 disks, these sizes can be changed by changing the relevant variables. In addition there is a P10 Disk used for each VMs OS Disk.

• In default settings for compute require that you have at least 15 cores of free quota to deploy.

• The images used to create this deployment are

  • DC - Latest Windows Server 2012 R2 Image
  • SQL Server - Latest SQL Server 2014 on Windows Server 2012 R2 Image or Latest SQL Server 2012SP1 on Windows Server 2012 R2 Image
  • Witness - Latest Windows Server 2012 R2 Image

• Once deployed access can be gained by the public IP address of Primary Domain Controller