You are a database administrator for a Microsoft SQL Server 2012 environment.
You want to deploy a new application that will scale out the workload to at least five different SQL
Server instances.
You need to ensure that for each copy of the database, users are able to read and write data that
will then be synchronized between all of the database instances.
Which feature should you use?
A.
Database Mirroring
B.
Peer-to-Peer Replication
C.
Log Shipping
D.
Availability Groups
Although (B) is the only answer which allows reads AND writes to each copy of the database, in a real-world scenario this would not be recommended without careful planning to avoid conflicts (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa479364.aspx). Perhaps Merge Replication would have been a better answer to include.
I thought it could be D because it’s must more resilient an can involve 5 computers too, but it’s not D for two stupid reasons.
1. This question was written before 2016, which now allows for up to 8 computer in an availability group. when the question was written, AG’s only allowed 4 computers.
2. Even though in real life, AG’s are way better, you have to take this question literally. Users have to be able to write to each copy of the database instead of just write to the primary, read from the replicas and have the differences trickle down.
I say B.
B
http://www.aiotestking.com/microsoft/which-feature-should-you-use-5/