SQL Server AlwaysOn AG Automatic initialization (i)

Technical background

In SQL Server 2012 and 2014, the only way to initialize a secondary copy of the SQL Server always on availability group is to use Backup, copy, and restore.

SQL Server 2016 introduces new features for initializing secondary replicas-automatic seeding (automatic seeding). Automatic seeding use a log stream transfer to stream a backup that uses VDI to a secondary copy of each database that uses the availability group of the configured endpoint. You can use this new feature when you initially create an availability group or add a database to an availability group. All SQL Server 2016 and later versions that support AlwaysOn availability groups support automatic seeding and can be used with traditional availability groups and distributed availability groups.

SQL Server AlwaysOn AG Automatic initialization (i)