For example, I have 2 basic AG in the instance for SQL standard edition. Both of this basic AG have different name and listener. AG1 with Listener1 AG2 with Listener2 My question is, can I run AG1 as primary in Node1 and AG2 as primary in Node2? Does this comply to the Microsoft licensing? Thank you.

Basic availability groups give you a failover for a single database. You don't need to license the second node unless you're using it for work. As soon as you put a workload on the second node, you would need to license both nodes. It's similar to how it's been for years with mirroring (which this is designed to replace). With mirroring, you didn't need to license the second node until you made it work, like making it readable or having it do other work. Then it needed to be licensed. And it's the same here.

Can multiple basic AG run its primary in different nodes?

Accepted answer

Greg Low 1,760 Reputation points Microsoft Regional Director

2024-02-29T06:13:58.2566667+00:00

Basic availability groups give you a failover for a single database. You don't need to license the second node unless you're using it for work.
As soon as you put a workload on the second node, you would need to license both nodes.
It's similar to how it's been for years with mirroring (which this is designed to replace). With mirroring, you didn't need to license the second node until you made it work, like making it readable or having it do other work. Then it needed to be licensed.
And it's the same here.
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Brandon Gan 20 Reputation points

2024-02-29T06:18:53.2866667+00:00

Hi Greg, For my side, we have licensed both node1 & node2 with Standard edition. Does it means that AG1 and AG2 can be running on each node respectively?

Greg Low 1,760 Reputation points Microsoft Regional Director

2024-02-29T06:27:54.2533333+00:00

If you have a SE license on both nodes, I can't imagine any issue with that. (But as always, unless you talk to the MS licensing people, everyone else will say "I am not a lawyer but..." and sadly even when you do talk to three of them, you might get three different answers. But it certainly sounds fine to me if you have 2 x SE licenses. The rules do say "You may have multiple Basic availability groups connected to a single instance of SQL Server." But the deciding point has always been that if you use it for work, it needs to be licensed. And that sounds like what you're doing.

Brandon Gan 20 Reputation points

2024-02-29T06:31:58.43+00:00

Sure. Thanks for the info Greg. I will discuss this with our Microsoft licensing expert. Thank you.
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