Let’s see how to setup an AG(SQL 2016) in a multi subnet cluster(Geo cluster) in a lab environment.
Below is my lab setup:
Two Replicas sitting in my Production Data center.(Subnet 192.168.1.x) – Sync Mode Automatic Failover.
Third(Far) Replica sitting in my DR Data Center.(Subnet 192.168.2.x) – Asynch Mode Manual Failover.
So, What do we need to be able to setup multiple subnets and routing in a lab environment? Answer is “Routing and Remote Access“. Have that installed by going to Add Roles/Features on your AD/DNS server.
Pre-req Step: Created 2 NICs on my SANDC machine with IPs 192.168.1.100 and 192.168.2.100
Open Routing and remote access config tool; right click on the root node and select “Enable and Configure Routing and remote access”.
Now…under IPv4, under General right click and select new routing protocol and select “RIP Version 2 for Internet Protocol”.
Now right click on RIP and select new interface and select your NIC1 and hit okay and next repeat the same step and select NIC2 this time and click okay. You are done with routing…That’s all you need for routing to work(As long as you got all the IPs and DNS details right).
Now, I’ve setup 3 nodes(two nodes(Prd) in 1.x and one(DR) in 2.x) and installed Failover Cluster feature on all the nodes and disabled all firewalls.
My PRD nodes: STLSQLAG1 and STLSQLAG2.
My DR Node:AZSQLAG3
Do find all my NIC settings from all my nodes at the very end of this post.
Now, Let’s create Windows Cluster:
Please refer to my earlier posts on how to create a cluster under “Clustering category” for detailed steps. Below are the steps at a high level.
Now…My cluster is ready, but it’s missing Quorum which is very critical for a cluster to be healthy. For that I’ve created a File share witness as Quorum.
FYI, NIC settings from Cluster manager are shown below.
NIC settings on all of my nodes:
STLSQLAG1: (1 NIC Card)
STLSQLAG2: ( 1 NIC Card)
AZSQLAG3(DR Server): 1 NIC Card
AD/DNS Server: ( 2 NICs one for 1.x and other for 2.x)
In this post we’ve seen how to setup a geo cluster in a lab environment. So, this completes the prep work needed from Windows stand point…Let’s see how to create AGs and Listeners in our Multi Subnet environment in next part of this series.
