Using PowerShell to Perform Availability Group Failovers

In the past we’ve explored how to use PowerShell to automate failovers on SQL Failover Clusters for Windows Updates and other scheduled maintenance. But what if you’re using Availability Groups instead of the traditional cluster? Fear not, there is still a PowerShell option for that. Usually I would have our night team use SSMS to fail over instances, but recently I transitioned to having them use the PowerShell method below. There are two primary reasons for this. 1) The system administrator does not need to have SQL Server rights in order to carry out the failover and 2) having pre-written commands helps cut down on human error.

For the purposes of this example we have two nodes (AGNODE1 and AGNODE2), each having their own instances (SQLINSTANCE1 and SQLINSTANCE2) that are part of an Availability Group (AGINSTANCE). This will walk through the process of installing Windows Updates on each of those nodes. We will assume that at the outset AGNODE1 is the primary for AGINSTANCE.

1. Install updates on AGNODE2 and reboot as necessary.
2. Log into AGNODE2.
3. Right-click PowerShell and click “Run as Administrator”.
4. Make AGNODE2 the primary by running the following command: Switch-SqlAvailabilityGroup -Path SQLSERVER:\Sql\AGNODE2\SQLINSTANCE2\AvailabilityGroups\AGINSTANCE
5. Confirm that the AG instance is now owned by AGNODE2 using this command: Get-ClusterGroup
6. Install updates on AGNODE1 and reboot as necessary.
7. Log into AGNODE1.
8. Right-click PowerShell and click “Run as Administrator”.
9. Make AGNODE1 the primary by running the following command: Switch-SqlAvailabilityGroup -Path SQLSERVER:\Sql\AGNODE1\SQLINSTANCE1\AvailabilityGroups\AGINSTANCE
10. Confirm that the AG instance is now owned by AGNODE1 using this command: Get-ClusterGroup

A couple of key points to keep in mind are this: 1) you must run the command from the destination server and 2) all of the confusing syntax is simply specifying the node, instance name, and Availability Group name for that destination server.

I hope this helps, and as always feel free to send me any questions!