RTaylor2208 (11/15/2013)
TheSQLGuru (11/14/2013)
Please don't just read a few blog posts, run a few forum questions and then set off doing AGs!!! NOTHING good will come of that! This is complex stuff with lots of caveats, provisos and gotchas!I get the feeling that its a bit of a rushed out product, I have been evaluating AG's for the last 2 months and there are a number of issues I have found so far. Specifically replication. Your distribution database cannot be part of an availability group meaning really you need to host it in a seperate SQL instance and possibly used clustering to provide any sort of HA. Although there is the option to utilities 2 or more of your servers used as part of the AG solution to host an additional clustered instance with shared storage.
Subscribers are not particularly well supported either and a real pain to deal with if part of a AG.
Not sure about rushed - it's just a very difficult thing to do robustly and scalably. Leaving out replication isn't surprising. In my experience (dedicated SQL Server engine work, mostly consulting, since 6.5 first came out) very few installations use replication. Some of the issues have been addressed in patches. But again, HA/DR itself is VERY hard to do right and I have come across very few clients that had things done up correctly. And most were HORRIBLY messed up!
Best,
Kevin G. Boles
SQL Server Consultant
SQL MVP 2007-2012
TheSQLGuru on googles mail service