Hi,
I'm looking at setting up a 2 node AlwaysON database availability group using SQL EE and Windows 2012 WMware virtual machines as shown below:
sql01 - 2 NICs, 3 disks, 100 GB total storage
sql02 - 2 NICs, 3 disks, 100 GB total storage
I'm planning on performing the installation using the following settings:-
Mixed mode authentication (as my app uses SQL authentication)
The same domain service accounts on both servers
I have 3 questions on the setup:
1. I was going to use 2 different NICs, one for storage traffic and one for the cluster\client connections, however because I'm using a VM which sees all of the storage as local disk (i.e. I'm not using guest based ISCI), am I right in thinking that using 2 NICs on the VM is pointless?
2. When creating an AlwaysOn Database Availability Group there's an option to use a file share and specify that share for syncing of the availability replicas. Am I right in thinking that this replication is only used for the initial file sync? Or is it used continuously thereafter?
3. I'm planning on using a witness share for quorum purposes - how big does this share need to be? Presumably less than 100mb?
Thanks