No doubt AlwaysOn Availability Groups is a hot topic here at SQL PASS Summit. As I mentioned in my previous posts, you need to consider the overhead associated with AlwaysOn as well as other limitations, If however you can deal with the overhead and the limitations do not apply to you and you still want to deploy AlwaysOn Availability Groups you may want to have a seat when you go open your checkbook.

I priced out (list price) a 2-node solution using SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups with a read-only target with a typical 2-socket, 16-core server configuration. I also added a comparable configuration running DataKeeper Cluster Edition on SQL 2012 Standard Edition and was as SQL 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition.

As you can see, deploying SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition (required for Availability Groups) your expense is much greater than if you deploy a similar replicated cluster solution using DataKeeper Cluster Edition.

Stop by both 351 at PASS Summit to see a demo and get more information.