Hi @Lee l,
The availability mode determines whether the primary replica waits to commit transactions on a database, until a given secondary replica has written the transaction log records to disk (hardened the log).
- Asynchronous-commit mode An availability replica that uses this availability mode is known as an asynchronous-commit replica. Under asynchronous-commit mode, the primary replica commits transactions without waiting for acknowledgment from asynchronous-commit secondary replicas to harden their transaction logs. Asynchronous-commit mode minimizes transaction latency on the secondary databases but allows them to lag behind the primary databases, making some data loss possible.
- Synchronous-commit mode An availability replica that uses this availability mode is known as a synchronous-commit replica. Under synchronous-commit mode, before committing transactions, a synchronous-commit primary replica waits for a synchronous-commit secondary replica to acknowledge that it has finished hardening the log. Synchronous-commit mode ensures that once a given secondary database is synchronized with the primary database, committed transactions are fully protected. This protection comes at the cost of increased transaction latency. Optionally, SQL Server 2017 introduced a required synchronized secondaries feature to further increase safety at the cost of latency when desired. The REQUIRED_SYNCHRONIZED_SECONDARIES_TO_COMMIT feature can be enabled to require a specified number of synchronous replicas to commit a transaction before a primary replica is allowed to commit.
For more information, see Differences between availability modes for an Always On availability group.
Regards,
Zoe Hui
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