Sql-server – 2016 Read Only Secondaries With Different Indexes

sql server

The other day, someone told me that one feature in SQL Server 2016 involving read-only secondaries for reporting was that the read-only secondary could have different indexes than the primary. I've searched for this everywhere and haven't found this to be the case. In fact, Microsoft seems to indicate the opposite here (in this manner, indexing is similar to 2012).

Just curious if I'm reading this correctly; read-only secondaries with different indexing would provide an option for reporting, but I don't see them being compatible with AG groups in any version of SQL Server.

Best Answer

I can say with a very high level of confidence that there is no plan to support alternate indexes on AG secondaries of any kind in SQL Server 2016.

Perhaps your friend is confusing indexes and statistics - you can create alternate statistics on read-only secondaries (details here).