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Using database mirroring for cross-database transactions or distributed transactions is not supported in SQL Server

Article ID: 926150 - View products that this article applies to.

INTRODUCTION

Database mirroring is not supported for either cross-database transactions or distributed transactions in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1)and later versions.

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Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1) introduced the database mirroring feature. However, database mirroring is not supported for either cross-database transactions or for distributed transactions. Transaction atomicity and transaction integrity cannot be guaranteed in the following scenarios:

Cross-database transactions

After a failover, the mirrored database is on a different server instance. Typically, the mirrored database is on a separate server instance from the non-mirrored database. Even if both databases are mirrored between the same two partners, there is no guarantee that both databases will fail over at the same time.
Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC)transactions

After a failover, the new principal server cannot connect to the MS DTC of the previous principal server that uses the same resource ID. Therefore, the new principal server cannot obtain the transaction status.

Example scenario

The following example scenario demonstrates how a logical inconsistency between databases might occur when you use database mirroring with cross-database transactions. In this example, an application uses a cross-database transaction to insert two rows of data. The following behavior occurs:

One row is inserted into a table in a mirrored database (database A).
The other row is inserted into a table in another database (database B).

Database A is mirrored in high-safety mode with automatic failover. While the transaction is being committed, database A becomes unavailable, and the mirroring session automatically fails over to the mirror of database A.

After the failover, the cross-database transaction might be successfully committed on database B but not on the failed-over database. This behavior can occur if the original principal server for database A does not send the transaction log for the cross-database transaction to the mirror server before the failure. After the failover, the transaction does not exist on the new principal server. Therefore, database A and database B are inconsistent. The data that is inserted into database B remains intact. The data that is inserted into database A is lost.

A similar scenario can occur when you use database mirroring with MS DTC transactions. For example, the new principal server contacts the MS DTC after a failover. However, the MS DTC has no knowledge of the new principal server. Therefore, the MS DTC stops any transactions that are in the "preparing to commit" phase, even though the transactions are considered committed in other databases.

For more information about the products or tools that automatically check for this condition on your instance of SQL Server and on the versions of the SQL Server product, see the following table:

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() Rule software	Rule title	Rule description	Product versions against which the rule is evaluated
System Center Advisor	SQL Server database mirroring is not supported with distributed and cross-database transactions	System Center Advisor checks if any database on the SQL Server instance is enabled for database mirroring. Advisor generates this alert based on this condition. Review your applications that connect to this database and make sure the SQL requests from this application does not participate in distributed transactions and cross-database transactions.	SQL Server 2008 SQL Server 2008 R2 SQL Server 2012

For more information about SQL Server 2005 database mirroring and cross-database transactions, visit the following Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Web site:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms366279.aspx

(http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms366279.aspx)

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