SQL AlwaysOn in 2 datacenters

[nmdange]

So I have two datacenters each with their own local Veeam install which backs up VMs on the local Hyper-V clusters, with backup copy jobs copying to the other datacenter. I do this so that in the event of a full datacenter outage, I can import the backup copies into the other Veeam backup server for quick restores.

Now that SQL Server 2016 supports AlwaysOn Availability Groups on Standard Edition, I'm looking at setting up a 2-node availability group with one node in each datacenter. Could each Veeam server backup the local cluster node or does one Veeam server have to back up both? If I do need one Veeam server to backup both, can two Veeam servers backup VMs on the same cluster?

[foggy]

It is recommended to put both nodes in a single backup job for proper transaction logs handling.

Theoretically, you can backup VMs in the same cluster with two different backup servers provided they are at the same patch level and jobs from different backup servers do not overlap. However this was not specifically tested.

[Vitaliy S.]

And if you proceed with 2 jobs, make sure only 1 job manages the transaction logs.

[skrause]

Are you using Veeam SQL aware processing to backup/process logs or are you backing up your SQL databases with other methods?

Also a related note to SQL Always On - only one node is actively handling requests at a time so if you have applications that need a local database server for latency issues using a single Always On setup might not work.

[nmdange]

I should be able to coordinate the backup jobs to not run at the same time. Yes I am looking to use Veeam Application-Aware processing to handle the SQL backups. I use it for other VMs but this is the first time doing it with an AlwaysOn availability group.