Always On - Does the read replica need the same SQL license as the primary? We have a SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition (30 cores) production database. We're using Always ON to provision a read only replica. Does the read replica instance also need to be Enterprise Edition with support for 30 cores?
Enterprise Edition is required on the readable replica, but it doesn't have to have the same hardware. You could go with a server with less cores and thus need less licenses.