Online disaster recovery between SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL Managed Instance is now GA

Today we are announcing the general availability of two key features: Managed Instance Link Feature For SQL Server 2022:

• Bi-directional failover between SQL Server 2022 and SQL Managed Instance with a link that unlocks true disaster recovery (DR) through Azure.Bidirectional failover between SQL Server 2022 and SQL Managed Instance
• Create links from SQL Managed Instance to SQL Server 2022 to unlock off-PaaS data portability for regulatory and dev/test scenarios Create a link from Azure SQL Managed Instance to SQL Server 2022

These two link functions were previously public preview.

We’re also really excited to share details of these noteworthy updates within the Link Features space.

Simplified T-SQL link failover

Start with SSMS 20.2You can now failover links using Transact-SQL (T-SQL), which also simplifies the steps that SSMS’s Failover wizard runs.

You can now initiate a planned failover on your primary instance using a single T-SQL command.

--Execute on the instance (SQL Server or SQL MI) hosting the primary database replica

ALTER AVAILABILITY GROUP [] FAILOVER

Similarly, you can now initiate a forced failover on a secondary instance using a single T-SQL command.

--Execute on the instance (SQL Server or SQL MI) hosting the secondary database replica

ALTER AVAILABILITY GROUP [] FORCE_FAILOVER_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS

These improvements provide the following benefits:

• Because link users manage multiple links simultaneously, you can create scripts to failover multiple links in parallel.
• Simplifies failover by eliminating external coordination of planned failover to eliminate possible user error.

For more information, please visit: Failover Link – Azure SQL Managed Instance | microsoft run.

Easily delete links in SSMS

A dedicated wizard has been added to SSMS to make it easy to delete links without waiting for data to sync. In some scenarios (migration or one-way failover to Azure SQL Managed Instance) links are automatically deleted, but there may be other situations where you might want to delete links manually. This new wizard makes it easy to clean up artifacts and metadata from both SQL Server and Azure SQL Managed Instance.

For more information, please visit: Configure links using SSMS – Azure SQL Managed Instance | microsoft run.

New link feature for how to improve guides and documentation

We’ve improved the quality and depth of our Link Features documentation by adding several how-to guides and expanding our best practices documentation. To explore this new content, please visit: Configure and manage content references – Azure SQL Managed Instance | microsoft run.

Update policy for Azure SQL Managed Instance and link features

Recently Update Policy Settings have been added to Azure SQL Managed Instance to allow customers to choose between database types that are aligned with SQL Server 2022 or provide early adoption of the SQL engine features available to SQL Managed Instance customers.

To use Link with SQL Server 2022, you must configure SQL Managed Instance as follows: SQL Server 2022 update policy. SQL Server 2022 update policies support data replication through links and database moves between SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL Managed Instance. After switching the instance to Always up-to-date update policyYou can no longer restore a SQL Managed Instance database to SQL Server 2022 or replicate data from SQL Managed Instance to SQL Server 2022 via a link. Updating to Always up-to-date update policy There is no turning back.

Improved Azure CLI and PowerShell support for links

Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell support for linking is currently partial and limited to replication from SQL Server to Azure SQL Managed Instance. Full native Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell commands, including bidirectional failover between SQL Server 2022 and SQL Managed Instance, and creating a link with Azure SQL Managed Instance as an initial primary instance to replicate in Azure, are scheduled for release by the end of 2024. . To SQL Server 2022.

Links to Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell reference content will be added to this blog post as they become available, so stay tuned!