The pros and cons of four typical configurations of AlwaysOn Availability Groups; stand-alone instances, fail-over cluster instances, multi-subnet, and a hybrid approach that I call disaster-recovery-on-the-cheap. We also cover their exclusive features such as read-only routing and backup off-loading. In addition, you’ll learn how to use the Availability Group Listener correctly and why you should be using Windows Server 2012 R2 or above, along with some of my own personal lessons learned.