2022 TDE and QAT

SirWill

I have a couple of questions regarding SQL Backup Pro and thought I'd ask in here.  First we are on SQL 2019, but will be moving to new servers and upgrading our Availability group to 2022.   I will also be implementing QAT compression for the backups instead of normal SQL Compression.  All of our databases have TDE Encryption.   First question is can I get redgate backup pro use the QAT encryption option during backup.  One of the reason I am exploring Redgate Backup Pro is object level restores, and that is something my developers would like to have.   

My 2nd question is around Licenses.   If I have a 3 node Availability group with 2 servers in my primary Data center and 1 is async in our other data center that would always be a forced failover location.  Do i have to license 1, 2 or 3 servers for that AG?  
How about for a FCI, do I have to license both nodes even though 1 is only ever up at a time? 

Kurt_M

Hi @SirWill

Thank you for reaching out. Below are the answers to your questions

• Unfortunately, SQL Backup does not currently support QAT Compression. While there were discussions about adding this feature, it hasn’t been implemented yet I'm afraid.
• Regarding Object Level Restores, this feature doesn't support that version of SQL Server, so It's not something I would feel confident in recommending: Object Level Recovery Limitations.
• As for licensing, each server running SQL Backup Pro requires a separate license. Here's a summary from the documentation page:
  
  The SQL Backup Pro server components are licensed per server. In this context, a server refers to a distinct system running a Windows operating system, whether physical or virtual. If you have a number of SQL Server instances running on the same physical or virtual server, you only need one license to activate the server components on each of the SQL Server instances. If your servers are clustered, you will need a license for each node running SQL Server: SQL Backup Licensing Guide.
  
  
• If you only have 1 active instance up at one time, then that must be licensed. It shouldn't affect things if you leave one which remains down unlicensed.