SQl Server Edition for 3 node Cluster

M W 21 Reputation points
2022-08-03T13:51:20.837+00:00

I've been looking at building a 3 node SQL FCI cluster, I know that for an Always On cluster you need Enterprise Edition for more than 2 nodes, but if you are not using SQL Always On and just shared storage and FCI, do you still need to have Enterprise Edition for the 3rd node?

SQL Server
SQL Server
A family of Microsoft relational database management and analysis systems for e-commerce, line-of-business, and data warehousing solutions.
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  1. Bjoern Peters 8,856 Reputation points
    2022-08-03T14:01:02.737+00:00

    This is just my understanding and not a official Microsoft licences answer!

    According to this website, and if you want to setup an SQL server 2019 FCI with more than 2 nodes... you will need an Enterprise Edition.

    227734-image.png
    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2019?view=sql-server-ver16

    4 On Enterprise Edition, the number of nodes is the operating system maximum. On Standard edition there is support for two nodes.


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  1. M W 21 Reputation points
    2022-08-03T15:35:17.717+00:00

    Thanks for your reply! I will get in touch with licensing.