Deploy a SQL Server AG in OpenShift with DxOperator
Streamline the Deployment of HA Containers
Many organizations are looking to containerize their Microsoft SQL Server to accelerate deployment, improve scalability, and simplify lifecycle management. Red Hat OpenShift provides a secure, enterprise-grade platform for deploying and orchestrating SQL Server containers at scale. With OpenShift, teams can take advantage of advanced features such as:
- Native K8s orchestration with automated scheduling, scaling, and self-healing of containerized workloads
- Integrated image management via OpenShift’s internal registry and support for trusted image sources
- Persistent storage provisioning with dynamic volume management for stateful SQL Server deployments
- Built-in security and compliance through SELinux, role-based access control (RBAC), and image signing
- Comprehensive DevOps tooling, including OpenShift Pipelines and GitOps workflows, for CI/CD automation
- Hybrid and multi-cloud portability, enabling consistent operations across on-premises and cloud environments
When running SQL Server on OpenShift, high availability and fault tolerance become key considerations—especially for mission-critical databases.
Key Challenges
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Database-aware failover orchestration – While OpenShift automatically recovers failed containers, it is not inherently aware of SQL Server’s database state or replication topology. Coordinating intelligent, database-level failover typically requires complementary clustering technology.
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Availability Group configuration and management – Deploying and maintaining SQL Server Availability Groups within OpenShift involves configuration of replicas, endpoints, and synchronization. Additional automation can simplify these processes and reduce operational overhead.
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Persistent storage alignment – OpenShift supports a wide variety of persistent storage backends. Ensuring consistent, low-latency access for SQL Server’s data and log volumes across nodes or clusters can benefit from enhanced orchestration or infrastructure integration.
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Cross-cluster and site resilience – OpenShift provides robust node-level and cluster-level reliability. Automated failover and recovery across geographically distributed environments often require external coordination mechanisms.
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Operational efficiency and resource utilization – Native HA configurations can leave secondary replicas underutilized. Extending OpenShift with complementary HA tooling can help optimize resource usage and streamline ongoing health monitoring, failover testing, and maintenance tasks.
Solution: Deploy SQL Server with DxOperator
DH2i’s Red Hat-certified SQL Server Operator, DxOperator, provides advanced automation to easily deploy SQL Server Availability Groups in OpenShift. DxOperator seamlessly integrates SQL Server workloads into the DxEnterprise high availability framework, complementing Red Hat OpenShift’s own robust container orchestration and security capabilities with enhancements like:
1. Intelligent Database-Aware Failover
By managing availability at the database level rather than the infrastructure level, DxEnterprise provides precise control over failover behavior—ensuring near-instant recovery, data consistency, and simplified cluster management.
2. SQL Server Sidecar Container Image
Deploy a certified DxEnterprise container image that runs natively on OpenShift side-by-side with a SQL Server container image, both in the same pod.
3. Unified Cluster Manager
A coordination layer that monitors health, orchestrates failover, and maintains cluster membership across OpenShift nodes, clusters, and any combination of platforms or infrastructure.
4. Automatic Failover from Anywhere to Anywhere
DxOperator and DxEnterprise unlock the proprietary capability of fully automatic failover for SQL Server Availability Groups in OpenShift, even allowing organizations to failover workloads across clouds and between sites.
5. Integrated SDP Security
Encrypted, certificate-based communication between DxEnterprise nodes and SQL Server containers—fully compatible with OpenShift’s integrated security controls and SELinux enforcement.
6. Availability Group Customization
DxOperator allows users to customize their Availability Group deployments to their exact specifications, even allowing them to toggle replicas between synchronous and asynchronous replication.
Cross-Industry Impact
The combined OpenShift + DxOperator solution empowers organizations to pursue the benefits of containers for even their most critical SQL Server workloads and simplify HA management within industries like:
- Financial services: Ensures transactional integrity and compliance for real-time trading, analytics, and reporting systems.
- Healthcare: Safeguards uptime for clinical applications and EHR platforms under strict data protection mandates.
- Manufacturing: Supports production systems and supply chain operations that rely on constant data access.
- Retail and e-commerce: Maintains customer experience continuity during demand surges or infrastructure maintenance.
- Public sector and education: Enables resilient, scalable environments for data-intensive research and citizen services.
Benefits of Deploying SQL Server Containers in OpenShift with DH2i's DxOperator
True database-level high availability – Rapid, intelligent failover at the database level minimizes downtime and preserves transactional integrity.
Simplified cluster deployment and management – Automated deployment and configuration reduce administrative effort and operational risk.
Hybrid and multicloud resiliency – Unified HA policies ensure consistent performance across OpenShift clusters and cloud providers.
Enhanced security & performance – Application-level ZTNA tunneling technology integrate seamlessly with your OpenShift cluster to provide Zero Trust security and boost network throughput.
Accelerated SQL Server modernization – Enables streamlined migration of SQL Server workloads into containerized, orchestrated environments without sacrificing enterprise reliability.