AlwaysOn Availability Groups are part of an integrated solution, introduced in SQL Server 2012 with the goal of achieving the highest level of data availability and disaster recovery for organizations.
Availability Groups grant DBAs the ability to automatically or manually failover a group of databases as a single unit with support for up to four secondary replicas. For additional information on availability groups, see the Microsoft document, Overview of AlwaysOn Availability Groups (SQL Server).
The SQL Safe Backup supports SQL Server Availability Groups and allows you to perform backup and recovery strategies on your primary and secondary replicas.
To install the SQL Safe Backup Management Components while targeting an availability group for the databases, follow these steps:
- Install the SQL Safe Backup with repository databases hosted in an availability group. For more information, see deploy SQL Safe Backup in an AlwaysOn Environment.
- Once you install the SQL Safe Backup, configure your databases for High Availability.
Launch the SQL Safe Management Console from the Start menu.
Keep in mind, an agent needs to be installed on all nodes of the availability group that will be considered for backups. To install the SQL Safe Backup Agent on each node of the availability group, please follow the instructions. For more information, see install and configure the SQL Safe Backup Agent.
To perform Backup and Restore operations on your primary and secondary replicas, see availability groups.
In an AlwaysOn Environment, the SQL Safe Backup will require a license key for each replica to ensure continued functionality of the product after a failover event.
The listener name should be used when generating a license key for the repository database.
In terms of licensing the agent, it still needs to be licensed for each replica.