Hello,
I am planning to implement AlwaysOn for synching data between main site and DR site in asynchronous fashion. It will be two node set up, one on main site and another on DR site. As far as Voting goes, I have read in multiple white papers that it is common to remove the quorum vote for that DR node. That leaves only one node (on main site) with the vote of 1 and since it's odd number already I am guessing that I don't need to set up any file share witness for additional vote. My question is:
a. Does the topology of AlwaysON with only one node on main site and one node on DR work without any file share witness work?
b. Does voting for 0 for DR node and 1 for main site node makes sense?
c. Periodically (once or twice a year), we do DR test. During that time, I need to failover to DR site and do the test. But, after the test is done, Do I need to perform full database backup/restore from main site to DR site before setting up AlwaysOn or is there better way where I don't need to do Full backup/restore? Anyone who has similar setup and do these test periodically, I would love to hear some solution options.
SQL server version I am using is SQL 2012.
I appreciate your reply. thanks.
Raj