I bet a lot of IT professionals who are really serious about their work are like me. When they see an error or warning message like this, their first instinct is to find out what the problem is and fix it. That’s what I did when I saw this error while configuring a SQL Server 2012 Always On Availability Group. I searched  blog posts, forum posts, mailing lists, KB articles, and everything I can think of. I’ve seen this error message before and I know exactly what to do. I’ve done this many times. Except this time, I didn’t do what I knew I needed to do.

Understanding the underlying architecture design is key to addressing warning and/or error messages like this. Microsoft KB article 2833122 outlines the different causes of this warning message when you are working with SQL Server 2012 Always On Availability Groups. I knew causes #1 and #2 do not apply to me because I’m already running on Windows Server 2012 with SQL Server 2012 with Service Pack 1. In the past, I had to install the required hotfix for Windows Server 2008/R2 to get this to work. But check this out. If you look closely at causes #3 and #4, and you understand the underlying architecture design, you might miss out the last phrase (emphasis mine.)

…you can safely ignore the warning message.

That’s it. No panicking, no pressing of the emergency button, no dialing 911.  Again, the key thing here is “understanding the architecture design.” In my case, it is a SQL Server failover clustered instance configured with an Always On Availability Group whose standby replica is on a different network subnet. I had to explicitly configure the node weight of the secondary replica to zero (0) because it is on a different network subnet. I do not want that node to affect the SQL Server failover clustered instance that is running in my primary data center. Ironically, I was the one who designed the architecture but was the very first one who panicked.

So, the next time you see an error message like this, ask yourself these questions:

1. Do I know what caused it?
2. Do I understand the underlying architecture design?
3. Do I need to resolve it?
4. Did I have enough sleep last night?

Feeling helpless and confused when dealing with Windows Server Failover Clustering  (WSFC) for your SQL Server databases?

You’re not alone. I’ve heard the same thing from thousands of SQL Server administrators throughout my entire career. These are just a few of them.

“How do I properly size the server, storage, network and all the AD settings which we do not have any control over?”

“I don’t quite understand how the Windows portion of the cluster operates and interacts with what SQL controls.”

“I’m unfamiliar with multi-site clustering.”

“Our servers are setup and configured by our parent company, so we don’t really get much experience with setting up Failover Clusters.“

If you feel the same way, then, this course is for you. It’s a simple and easy-to-understand way for you to learn and master how Windows Server Failover Clusters can keep your SQL Server databases highly available. Be confident in designing, building and managing SQL Server databases running on Windows Server Failover Clusters.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what my students have to say about the course.

“The techniques presented were very valuable, and used them the following week when I was paged on an issue.”

“Thanks again for giving me confidence and teaching all this stuff about failover clusters.”

“I’m so gladdddddd that I took this course!!”

“Now I got better knowledge to setup the Windows FC ENVIRONMENT (DC) for SQL Server FCI and AlwaysON.”

Thanks to the guys at CanITPro.net, my article has gone live. Check out the article on Step-By-Step: Creating a SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Group.

Don’t put your databases at risk when deploying SQL Server Always On Availability Groups

Did you know that SQL Server Always On Availability Groups depend so much on Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC)?  The availability of the SQL Server databases relies heavily on the WSFC. And if you don’t know these other external dependencies, you are putting your mission-critical SQL Server databases at risk. Don’t be caught off guard. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I have had to bring a SQL Server Always On Availability Group online in an emergency just to explain that it was the WSFC that caused the outage.

I’ve been thinking about those heart-pounding moments when I needed to resolve an outage in the middle of the night involving SQL Server Always On Availability Groups. It doesn’t have to be painful and extremely complex.

If you need help with SQL Server Always On Availability Groups, let’s talk. Schedule a call with me.

And if you’re in New York City or the nearby cities and want to see this whole process in action, catch me at SQL Saturday #158 this coming 4-Aug-2012.

[UPDATE:] Part 2 of the series has been published on 26-July-2012. Stay tuned for the rest of the series.

[UPDATE:] Part 3 of the series has been published on 13-Aug-2012. Stay tuned for the rest of the series.

[UPDATE:] Part 4, the last of the series has been published on 06-Sep-2012.

This article walks you through configuring Windows Server Core using the traditional MS-DOS commands in preparation to installing SQL Server 2012. This article, however, does the same thing using Windows PowerShell. I’m still awaiting publication of the third part of this series so I can add it to this list.

You can download the resources – slide deck, Windows-based client application together with the Visual Studio 2010 project files, batch files to simulate workload and T-SQL scripts – here (you need to change the file extension from PDF to ZIP and extract the contents).

NOTE: If you’ve seen me deliver a presentation before, you know that the slides I used for the presentation were meant to be handouts.

I tried to avoid answering this question from people asking about the release date for SQL Server 2012. That’s because the SQL Server 2012 Virtual Launch Event has been announced way back in January 2012. I was in Redmond, WA when the schedule was publicly announced and had conversations with the marketing team about the virtual launch event. My common response to people asking was, “Remember the SQL Server 2008 launch? While there was a launch event in March 2008 together with Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008 didn’t hit the RTM status until 6-Aug-2008. It’ll be the same with SQL Server 2012.” It has been my response – until last week.

However, this is what you’ll see when you log in to the SQL Server 2012 Virtual Launch Event page

Woohoo! SQL Server 2012 has officially reached the RTM status! This is a great opportunity for you to download the bits and start playing around with production-ready code. Now, I have to re-create my test environment for SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn using the RTM bits.

Wherever you are, join the SQL Server community on this online event. Watch Keynote Sessions, Sessions by Track or hang out – virtually – with the different SQL Server experts in the community. Register or Log In to the virtual event site and join in the fun.