Steps for removing members from a replication group
To remove Subscribers from a replication group
- Connect to the Publisher Administration Service.
- In the console tree, expand Configuration | Server Configuration, and click Configuration Databases.
- In the details pane, right-click the Subscriber, and then click Delete.
To remove the Publisher from a replication group
- Connect to the Publisher Administration Service.
- In the console tree, expand Configuration | Server Configuration, and click Configuration Databases.
- In the details pane, right-click the Publisher, and then click Demote.
|
NOTE:
- For information on how to connect to an Administration Service, see Connecting to the Administration Service earlier in this chapter.
- The Publisher cannot be removed from its replication group when the group includes Subscribers. To remove the Publisher, you must first remove all Subscribers, and then demote the Publisher. This action deletes the replication group. After you remove all Subscribers, you can demote the Publisher.
- The Demote command is not displayed unless the Publisher is the only member of the replication group.
- If Active Roles does not have sufficient rights to perform the operation on SQL Server, then the Active Roles console prompts you to supply an alternative account for that operation (see “Replication configuration permissions” in the Active Roles Quick Start Guide).
|
Monitoring replication
Active Roles makes it possible to monitor the status of replication partners. Monitoring allows you to determine whether Active Roles replication is working efficiently and correctly. You can view the status of a replication partner via the Active Roles console:
- Connect to any Administration Service within the replication group.
- Open the Properties dialog box for the replication partner and go to the Replication Status tab.
To connect to the Administration Service, use the instructions provided earlier in this chapter (see Connecting to the Administration Service).
Once connected to the Administration Service, perform the following steps to open the Properties dialog box for a replication partner:
- In the console tree, expand Configuration | Server Configuration, and select Configuration Databases.
- In the details pane, right-click the replication partner, and click Properties.
The Replication Status tab in the Properties dialog box provides information about the last replication action of the partner and indicates whether the action completed successfully, failed, or is in progress.
If there are any replication failures in Active Roles, the Active Roles console provides a visual indication of this issue by modifying the icon of the Server Configuration and Configuration Databases containers in the console tree. This allows you to detect a replication failure without examining individual databases.
For more information on how to monitor the health of Active Roles replication, refer to the Active Roles Replication: Best Practices and Troubleshooting document.
Using AlwaysOn Availability Groups
You can improve the availability of the Active Roles Administration Service by using the AlwaysOn Availability Groups feature introduced in Microsoft SQL Server 2012. With the AlwaysOn Availability Groups feature, SQL Server provides a failover environment, known as an availability group, for a set of availability databases that fail over together from one SQL Server instance to another. You can add the Active Roles database to an availability group, and have the Administration Service automatically reconnect to the database when the availability group fails over to another SQL Server instance.
An availability group defines a set of availability replicas to host copies of each availability database. Each availability group has at least two availability replicas: the primary replica and a secondary replica. The primary replica hosts the read-write copy of each availability database held in the availability group; a secondary replica hosts a read-only copy of each availability database, and serves as a potential failover target for the availability group. During a failover, a secondary replica transitions to the primary role, becoming the new primary replica. The new primary replica brings its databases online as the primary databases for read-write access.
Adding the Active Roles database to an availability group helps ensure uninterrupted operation of the Active Roles Administration Service. If a server or software failure occurs on the SQL Server side, the availability group can instantly switch the database to a secondary replica, enabling the Administration Service to reconnect seamlessly to the database in the new location.
For detailed information about the AlwaysOn Availability Groups feature, see “AlwaysOn Availability Groups (SQL Server)” at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=245660.
Availability Group setup in Active Roles
Availability Group setup in Active Roles
If you have the Active Roles Administration Service installed and configured, this section provides instructions on how to configure the Administration Service to use the database that belongs to an availability group (an availability database). For more information on how to install and configure the Administration Service, see the Active Roles Quick Start Guide.
NOTE: The Administration Service whose database belongs to an availability group cannot participate in Active Roles replication. Active Roles does not support the replication function for availability databases. If you attempt to perform the Promote to Publisher or Add Subscriber operation with the Administration Service connected to an availability database, you receive an error.
Here we assume that the Active Roles database is already added to an availability group on SQL Server. For instructions on how to configure an availability group, and how to add a database to an availability group, see Getting Started with AlwaysOn Availability Groups (SQL Server)in the Microsoft SQL documentation. We also assume that Active Roles replication is not configured, neither for Configuration data nor for Management History data.
Under these conditions, you can configure the Administration Service to connect to the database via the availability group listener. By using the listener, the Administration Service can connect to the current primary replica of the availability group that holds the Active Roles database without knowing the name of the physical instance of SQL Server that hosts the primary replica. The listener enables support for failover redirection. In case of a failover, the listener automatically redirects the Administration Service’s connection to the new primary replica.