Beginning with SQL Server 2012, Microsoft introduced availability groups as a failover solution. They can be a useful solution for HA solutions and can be used for managing backups from secondary replicas and allowing read-only access to secondary replicas for reporting purposes.
For more information on AlwaysOn Availability Groups, see the following Microsoft documentation:
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Overview of AlwaysOn Availability Groups at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff877884.aspx.