VM SQL server instance - changing secondary node to DR License - Do I need to update primary server licensing if the failover occurred?

Question

Dear Sir/madam,

According to the documentation, we can change our secondary node licensing to DR - as this helps to reduce some cost incurred.
Let's say i have 2 server instance, SERVER_A and SERVER_B. I enabled this licensing option ( changing it to DR) on my secondary (SERVER_) database node.
If a failover occurred, do I need to update the licensing (update SERVER_A given that it is, potentially my secondary failover node?

Thank you very much

Answer 1

Hi @Jeremy Woo Weng Keong ,

This is a SQL Tech forum. For SQL license question, suggest you consult professionals in this area. They will give you a confirm answer. Please call 1-800-426-9400, Monday through Friday, 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. (Pacific Time) to speak directly to a Microsoft licensing specialist. Or you can go to Volume Licensing Service Center support. Please choose region/language and choose to call or have web. People there will help you more effectively.
Hope this could help you.

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Answer 2

Hi @Jeremy Woo Weng Keong ,

Quote from this MS blog SQL Server Licensing: High Availability and Disaster Recovery benefits;

> Customer may also run Primary Workloads and its disaster recovery Fail-over OSEs simultaneously for brief periods of disaster recovery testing every 90 days, and around the time of a disaster, for a brief period, to assist in the transfer between them.

>When you switch between production and DR environments, you are leveraging your License Mobility Software Assurance benefit and reassigning licenses from production to DR. You can do this reassignment any number of times with Software Assurance.

Suggest you watching the videos on this MS blog, they will share you the detail information about SQL license for HA/DR.

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Answer 3

Thanks Cathy, i guess the answer is yes. From a licensing/legal standpoint, do I need to goto Azure portal > Sql Server instance -> Configure -> Update my licensing info for Sql server, given that we already purchase the enterprise license? As in this is my sql vm instance primary -> so set it to Hybrid mode. Then go to my sql vm secondary instance -> set it to HA/DR mode?