Sign up ×  Can I use SQL 2008 R2 as a Witness Server for 2
instances of SQL 2012 Servers being mirrored?  share|improve
this question  1 Answer 1  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  share|improve this answer 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