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Can I use SQL 2008 R2 as a Witness Server for 2 instances of SQL 2012 Servers being mirrored?

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up vote 4 down vote accepted

No witness server has to be SQL 2012, you can use SQL Express 2012 though

All server participating in database mirroring should be running same version of SQL server.

Taken from Microsoft SQL Server BOL


Database Mirroring will be deprecated in future release of SQL Server if possible use AlwasyOn Availability Group

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Going to try using SQL 2012 Evaluation version - hoping that one will work. Thank you –  Dina Jul 16 '12 at 13:46
Using Express in production is not a good move as it does not have a SQL Agent for starters. My 2c is that there is no way MS can count an additional license for a Witness. –  Slev Jun 17 at 14:57
@Slev I agree, now one technically has to go out and buy a licence purely to be a witness server. I also donot understand how sql versions has anything to do with a witness server? surely its a sort of ping program that just checks if it can reach the servers? –  Zapnologica Aug 11 at 16:46

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