Prerequisites to convert log shipping to Always On availability groups

Applies to: SQL Server

This article describes the prerequisites for converting a log shipping primary database and one or more secondary databases to an Always On primary and secondary database(s).

Note

You can configure any primary or secondary database (possibly readable) as a log shipping primary database in an availability group.

Availability Group Prerequisites

To allow backup jobs to run on the primary replica of the availability group, use the following Always On Availability Groups backup settings:

Property Setting
Automated backup preference of availability group Only on the primary replica
Back up priority of the primary replica. >0

For more information:

View Availability Group Properties (SQL Server)

Configure Backup on Availability Replicas (SQL Server)

Log Shipping Prerequisites

  • The log shipping primary database must reside on the instance of SQL Server that hosts the initial/current primary replica of the availability group.

  • For a given log shipping secondary database to be converted to an Always On secondary database, it must:

    • Use the same name as the primary database.

    • Reside on a server instance that hosts a secondary replica for the availability group.

Once the backup job has run on the primary database, disable the backup job, and once the restore job has run on a given secondary database, disable the restore job.

After you have created all the secondary databases for the availability group, if you want to perform backups on secondary replicas, you need to reconfigure the automated backup preference of the availability group.

For more information:

Converting a log shipping configuration to Availability Group (a SQL Server blog)

Related Tasks

Log shipping

Always On Availability Groups