Hey,

I wanted to know if you can configure 2 SQL Server Instances to participate in 2 different Availability Groups.

For example we have 2 SQL Servers and on SQL Server 1 we have 2 SQL Server Instances. Can i have 2 Availability Groups, one for each instance, that replicate the databases to SQL Server 2?

I've read in THIS article that "only one instance of SQL Server per cluster node can participate in Availability Groups due to the coordination between the Availability Groups and their underlying Windows Server Failover Cluster".

Can someone confirm if i can use Availability Groups when i have multiple SQL Server Instances?

Thanx

Hi There,

I recently installed SQL 2016 on a SQL 2012 cluster as an additional instance.

This is my POC server. I configured availability group between SQL 2016.

That means one availability group between SQL 2012 and another between SQL 2016. I did not get any issues in creating. In my case no applications connected to these groups. Build a test servers and try how that works.

Listeners: Each availability group has its own listener and you need to configure it. Your applications are required to connect through listener.

Automatic Fail overs:

scenario: If your primary server restarts or down then both will fail over to secondary

scenario: If any SQL instance restarts or down then only that instance will fail over to other node.

Good luck.

I was more interested in the scenario where I had multiple instances on the same SQL Server.

Hi stefanuxro,

Do you want to know that  if the following configuration is supported?

server A SQL Server instance 1, availability group 1

server A SQL Server instance 2, availability group 2

server B SQL Server instance1, availability, group 1

server B SQL Server instance 2, availability group 2

If that is the case, the design is supported. You can review the following similar threads about the configuration for  AlwaysOn Availability Groups with multiple SQL instances.

Multiple Instances and AlwaysOn Availability Groups
SQL Server 2012 AlwaysON multiple instance multiple listeners

Thanks,
Lydia Zhang