Configuring SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups with Dynamics CRM

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the need to test a Dynamics CRM environment using Always On Availability Groups (AO AG) from SQL 2012.  While SQL 2012 is fully supported for both CRM 2011 and 2013, and normally a fairly straight-forward installation, adding AO AG to that mix can cause some complexity.  This is especially true when attempting this configuration in a stand-alone test environment where you might not have easy access to shared storage such as a SAN.  In my test environment, I used Hyper-V virtual machines and Microsoft iSCSI software for shared storage.

During my setup and configuration, I kept a list of resources I used and have created a new “curation” over at the new Curah! website from Microsoft.  The curation should provide you with enough resources to get a SQL 2012 AO AG environment up and running with CRM databases.  I would suggest reading the Set configuration and organization databases for SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn failover first.  The other links in the curation then support that article.

In the end, the diagram below roughly shows what my environment looks like.  With the two SQL Servers as nodes in a Windows Failover Cluster.  Along with AO AG enabled on these with SQL Server 1 acting as the Primary and SQL Server 2 as the secondary.  Dynamics CRM is then configured to point to the SQL AG Listener.

Ryan A. Anderson

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