If you are going to host SQL Server on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) you will want to make sure it is highly available with a SQL Failover Cluster. One of the best and most economical ways to do that is to build a SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance (FCI). In this guide, we will walk through the steps to build a two-node failover cluster between two instances in the same region, but in different Zones, within the GCP.

This white paper discusses the key concepts you need to configure a failover clustering environment to protect SQL Server in the cloud. Understand the options for configuring the cluster Quorum to meet your specific needs. Learn the benefits and key takeaways for providing high availability for SQL Server in a public cloud (AWS, Azure, Google) environment.

AWS guarantees that if two or more instances are deployed in different availability zones (AZs), at least one of those instances will have external connectivity. The SLA does not guarantee that the application running inside the instance will be available. To address availability of the application, users will need to take additional steps to monitor the application and recover it should a failure occur.

In this eBook, the author describes in great detail what is needed to prepare the EC2 infrastructure to support business-critical applications clustered with Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC). In order to qualify for the 99.99 percent availability, instances must be deployed across multiple AZs. Readers will learn how to design EC2 infrastructure to support cross-AZ failover clustering.