Connecting to named Instances Using Port Number
- by blakmk
I came across an interesting situation where a developer was trying to connect to a named instance using a DNS alias without specifying the instance name. Coincidently though he remembered to include the port number and miraculously it worked. So it appears that sql server accepts connections to a specific instance based on its port number. While it may not seem to particularly useful, I can imagine it could be used in the following situations: To mirror to a server with a different instance name (but same port number) To hide the complexity of instance names from end users and just rely on port number (and optionally dns alias)
