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How to check history of primary node in an Availability Group?

Submitted by: @import:stackexchange-dba··
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primarygrouphistorynodeavailabilityhowcheck

Problem

How do I see history of failovers of the primary node of a cluster? I'm trying to figure out at what point secondary node started to act as primary.

We are running Windows Server 2012 with SQL Server 2012 and Availability Groups.

Solution

Here's my go-to query to pull the events that Aaron mentioned (availability_replica_state_change). This script also takes the liberty of converting the UTC time to your local time:

declare @xel_path varchar(1024);
declare @utc_adjustment int = datediff(hour, getutcdate(), getdate());

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------- target event_file path retrieval --------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;with target_data_cte as
(
    select  
        target_data = 
            convert(xml, target_data)
    from sys.dm_xe_sessions s
    inner join sys.dm_xe_session_targets st
    on s.address = st.event_session_address
    where s.name = 'alwayson_health'
    and st.target_name = 'event_file'
),
full_path_cte as
(
    select
        full_path = 
            target_data.value('(EventFileTarget/File/@name)[1]', 'varchar(1024)')
    from target_data_cte
)
select
    @xel_path = 
        left(full_path, len(full_path) - charindex('\', reverse(full_path))) + 
        '\AlwaysOn_health*.xel'
from full_path_cte;

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------- replica state change events -------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;with state_change_data as
(
    select
        object_name,
        event_data = 
            convert(xml, event_data)
    from sys.fn_xe_file_target_read_file(@xel_path, null, null, null)
)
select
    object_name,
    event_timestamp = 
        dateadd(hour, @utc_adjustment, event_data.value('(event/@timestamp)[1]', 'datetime')),
    ag_name = 
        event_data.value('(event/data[@name = "availability_group_name"]/value)[1]', 'varchar(64)'),
    previous_state = 
        event_data.value('(event/data[@name = "previous_state"]/text)[1]', 'varchar(64)'),
    current_state = 
        event_data.value('(event/data[@name = "current_state"]/text)[1]', 'varchar(64)')
from state_change_data
where object_name = 'availability_replica_state_change'
order by event_timestamp desc;

Code Snippets

declare @xel_path varchar(1024);
declare @utc_adjustment int = datediff(hour, getutcdate(), getdate());

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------- target event_file path retrieval --------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;with target_data_cte as
(
    select  
        target_data = 
            convert(xml, target_data)
    from sys.dm_xe_sessions s
    inner join sys.dm_xe_session_targets st
    on s.address = st.event_session_address
    where s.name = 'alwayson_health'
    and st.target_name = 'event_file'
),
full_path_cte as
(
    select
        full_path = 
            target_data.value('(EventFileTarget/File/@name)[1]', 'varchar(1024)')
    from target_data_cte
)
select
    @xel_path = 
        left(full_path, len(full_path) - charindex('\', reverse(full_path))) + 
        '\AlwaysOn_health*.xel'
from full_path_cte;

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------- replica state change events -------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;with state_change_data as
(
    select
        object_name,
        event_data = 
            convert(xml, event_data)
    from sys.fn_xe_file_target_read_file(@xel_path, null, null, null)
)
select
    object_name,
    event_timestamp = 
        dateadd(hour, @utc_adjustment, event_data.value('(event/@timestamp)[1]', 'datetime')),
    ag_name = 
        event_data.value('(event/data[@name = "availability_group_name"]/value)[1]', 'varchar(64)'),
    previous_state = 
        event_data.value('(event/data[@name = "previous_state"]/text)[1]', 'varchar(64)'),
    current_state = 
        event_data.value('(event/data[@name = "current_state"]/text)[1]', 'varchar(64)')
from state_change_data
where object_name = 'availability_replica_state_change'
order by event_timestamp desc;

Context

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#76016, answer score: 10

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