If clients are touching this server or you are using it for daily queries for work, you will have to license the secondary instance. Just to clarify, as stated in the licensing guide a passive fail-over instance is one that is not used by clients or doing production related workloads. What is a passive fail-over in licensing terms? I’m guessing performance counters would be useful if you wanted to check why backups or CheckDB were taking too long. For instance, it also includes performance counters if required. However, I have since asked elsewhere and it actually covers more than just DMV’s. I assumed it meant you could query DMV’s. In addition, some of you are probably wondering what exactly the last item check resource data means. Especially since this can apply to Log Shipping as well as Always On Availability Groups. Passive fail-over changesĪs I pointed out in one of my SQL Saturday sessions at SQL Saturday Edinburgh you can now do the below on a SQL Server 2019 passive fail-over (secondary) instance in some licensing situations:Īs you can imagine, the fact that you may be able to do backups and CheckDB on your secondary databases is a big deal. Of course, there are other significant updates in the licensing guide as well. Because it opens up some new possibilities which I will explain below. Which I have to admit I am really excited about. Especially if you have Software Assurance. To clarify, in SQL Server 2019 there have been some big licensing changes about what you can and can’t do on a passive fail-over instance. With this in mind, I thought I would discuss them here to raise awareness about the changes. Which surprised me a bit because these licensing changes have been in-place for a while now. Because it was a big topic of conversation when I spoke at SQL Saturday Edinburgh recently. The price list I've received from our SQL Server reseller only includes the Enterprise Core option.I thought I would cover significant SQL Server 2019 licensing changes for High Availability and Disaster Recovery. When downloading the SQL Server images from the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center, I get the option to download the SQL Server 2019 Enterprise for both the Server + CAL and Core options.Ģ. There are two additional inconsistencies:ġ. In the second PDF (SQL Server 2019 Licensing Guide.pdf), it states that the Enterprise version is only licensed in the Core option. In the first PDF (SQL Server 2019 Licensing Datasheet.pdf) it clearly states that there is a Server + CAL option for licensing SQL Server EnterpriseĢ. However, I get very inconsistent information about this licensing mode from the official Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Pricing web site (1. I work for an ISV company that is very interested in using the SQL Server 2019 Enterprise licensed in Server + CAL Mode.

Sql server 2019 license guide