Understanding SQL Server AG Virtual database

Managing Microsoft SQL Always-On configurations is complex, particularly for large databases over 1 TB. To solve this challenge of creating non-production copies of Availability Group (AG) databases regularly, Delphix now provides the Availability Group (AG) as a Target option to enable users to efficiently create virtual databases within Always-On environments.

If the Availability Group (AG) configuration is set on a cluster, it will be discovered whenever such a cluster is added as a Windows target environment on the Delphix Continuous Data Engine. The AG configuration is used for the provisioning of virtual databases (VDB). Such a VDB, provisioned on an AG configuration, will be called an AG virtual database.

The SQL Server AG virtual database is similar to how an availability database on SQL Server looks. AG virtual database is just a logical entity that is comprised of multiple replica databases. Replica databases are the actual SQL Server databases that are hosted on Delphix storage mounted on every AG replica host

Thus, one of the replica databases represents a primary replica database of the Availability group at all times and the rest of the replica databases act as a secondary replica database of the Availability group.

Unsupported configuration(s) -

SQL Server Availability groups can be added as both source and target cluster but dSource(s) on an AG configuration are not supported on a target cluster.
Users will not be able to create a virtual database(s) on AG configurations where AG replicas are hosted on SQL Server FC instances.

Support Matrix for VDB operations across different VDB types

	Common VDB operations
	Provision	Refresh	Disable/Enable	Delete	Auto VDB Restart	Snapshot	Stop/Start	Rewind	V2P	Undo Refresh
VDB on standalone instances	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
VDB on FCI	Y	Y	Y*	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
VDB on AG	Y	Y	Y*	Y	Y	N	N	N	N	N

* Force Disable is not supported for VDB on FCI or VDB on AG