EMC VSPEX FOR VIRTUALIZED MICROSOFT SQL SERVER 2012

Transcription

1 DESIGN GUIDE EMC VSPEX FOR VIRTUALIZED MICROSOFT SQL SERVER 2012 EMC VSPEX Abstract This describes how to design virtualized Microsoft SQL Server resources on the appropriate EMC VSPEX Private Cloud for Microsoft Hyper- V or VMware vsphere. The guide also illustrates how to size SQL Server 2012, allocate resources following best practices, and use all the benefits that VSPEX offers. April 2013

2 Copyright 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA. Published April 2013 EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. The information in this publication is provided as is. EMC Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. EMC 2, EMC, and the EMC logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. For the most up-to-date regulatory document for your product line, go to the technical documentation and advisories section on the EMC online support website. Part Number H

3 Contents Chapter 1 Introduction Purpose of this guide Business value Scope Audience Terminology Chapter 2 Before You Start Documentation workflow overview Essential reading Solution Overviews Implementation Guides for SQL Server VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Chapter 3 Solution Overview Overview Solution architecture Key components Introduction Microsoft SQL Server EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure VMware vsphere Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V EMC VNX family EMC Unisphere EMC Virtual Storage Integrator for VMware vsphere VNX VMware vstorage API for Array Integration support EMC Storage Integrator EMC XtremSW Cache EMC Avamar EMC Data Domain

4 Contents EMC PowerPath/VE Chapter 4 Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Overview Step 1: Evaluate the customer use case Step 2: Design the application architectures VSPEX Sizing Tool Step 3: Choose the right VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Considerations Examples Chapter 5 Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices Overview Network design considerations Overview of network design considerations Design best practices Storage layout and design considerations Overview of storage layout and design considerations Storage design Component design best practices Storage layout examples Virtualization design considerations Overview of virtualization design considerations Design best practices Application design considerations Overview of application design considerations Design best practices SQL Server 2012 licensing consideration Backup and recovery design considerations Considerations Minimum backup software and hardware requirements Chapter 6 Solution Verification Methodologies Baseline hardware verification methodology Overview Application verification methodology Understanding key metrics Running tests, analyzing results, and optimization Backup and recovery verification methodology Overview of backup and recovery implementation

5 Deploying backup software Chapter 7 References Product documentation Other documentation Links Appendix A Qualification Worksheet Qualification worksheet Printing the worksheet for customer use Appendix B High-level SQL Server sizing logic and methodology High-level SQL Server sizing logic and methodology Overview Sufficient resource Sizing considerations

6 Contents 6

7 Figures Figure 1. Architecture of the validated infrastructure Figure 2. VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Figure 3. Storage layout and LUN design Figure 4. SQL Server storage elements on VMware vsphere 5.1 platform Figure 5. SQL Server storage elements on Hyper-V platform Figure 6. Storage layout example: SQL Server for the VNXe series Figure 7. Storage layout example: SQL Server for VNX series Figure 8. Manage All Datasets window Figure 9. New Dataset window Options Figure 10. New Group window Figure 11. Avamar Administrator Group backup Figure 12. Avamar Group backup success

8 Figures 8

9 Tables Table 1. Terminology Table 2. VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server 2012 deployment process Table 3. Reference virtual machine characteristics Table 4. VNX software suites Table 5. VNXe software suites Table 6. VNX software packs Table 7. VSPEX Proven Infrastructure selection steps Table 8. VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server 2012 qualification worksheet questionnaire Table 9. VSPEX Sizing Tool output Table 10. VSPEX Proven Infrastructure: Selection steps Table 11. Example qualification worksheet: Small-sized SQL Server OLTP instance Table 12. Example of required resources: Small-sized SQL Server OLTP instance 40 Table 13. Example of SQL Server details in VSPEX Sizing Tool Table 14. Example VSPEX qualification worksheet: Medium-sized SQL Server user database Table 15. Example of required resources: Medium-sized SQL Server OLTP instance Table 16. Example summary: Medium-sized SQL Server user database in VSPEX Sizing Tool Table 17. Example user profiles: User databases requirement Table 18. Example qualification worksheet: SQL Server OLTP instance with Table 19. multiple user databases Example of required resources: SQL Server OLTP instance with multiple user databases Table 20. Example of SQL Server details in VSPEX Sizing Tool Table 21. SQL Server storage pools Table 22. Storage layout example on VNXe Table 23. Storage layout example on VNX Table 24. Recommended RAM for SQL Server Table 25. Hardware requirements for backup Table 26. Services and writers used by Avamar plug-in for SQL Server Table 27. High-level steps for application verification Table 28. Key metrics Table 29. Qualification worksheet for a SQL Server user database Table 30. An example of user input for multiple user databases

10 Chapter 1: Introduction Table 31. Reference virtual machine calculation results per database requirement Table 32. An example of user input for multiple user databases Table 33. Recommended drive and LUN configuration Table 34. VSPEX storage model support matrix Table 35. Storage system support matrix

11 Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 1 Introduction This chapter presents the following topics: Purpose of this guide Business value Scope Audience Terminology

12 Chapter 1: Introduction Purpose of this guide Business value EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructures are optimized for virtualizing business-critical applications. VSPEX provides partners with the ability to plan and design the business-critical assets required to support Microsoft SQL Server 2012 in a virtualized environment on VSPEX Private Cloud. EMC VSPEX for virtualized Microsoft SQL Server 2012 architecture provides a validated system, capable of hosting a virtualized SQL Server 2012 solution at a consistent performance level. This solution is designed to be layered on a VSPEX Private Cloud solution using either a VMware vsphere or Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization layer, and leverages the highly available EMC VNX family, which provides the storage. EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain enable partners to adopt a purpose-built backup appliance for SQL Server. The compute and network components, while vendor-definable, are designed to be redundant and are sufficiently powerful to handle the processing and data needs of the virtual machine environment. This describes how to design the virtual resources necessary to satisfy the requirements for deploying Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on any VSPEX Private Cloud. Never before has access to mission-critical data been more important to businesses competing in a rapidly changing global economy. Today, IT departments are challenged with an explosion of corporate data along with stagnant or shrinking budgets. As the foundation of the cloud-ready information platform, SQL Server 2012 provides great availability, breakthrough insight, credible, consistent data, and productive development experience to customers. It can also quickly build solutions and extend data across on-premises and public cloud backed by mission-critical confidence. Data protection and backup are among the most complex aspects of administrating SQL Server 2012 environments. DBAs and storage administrators need the backup process to be less costly and require less administrative attention. Given the pressure on backup, it is not surprising that more businesses are looking for advanced data protection technologies for SQL Server 2012 environments. SQL Server 2012 introduces a new integrated high availability and disaster recovery solution, SQL Server AlwaysOn. AlwaysOn provides the flexibility to support various high availability configurations enabling you to maintain your service level agreements (SLAs). VSPEX enables customers to accelerate their IT transformation with faster deployments, and simplified management, backup, and storage provisioning. Customers can realize greater efficiency with higher application availability, increased storage utilization, and faster, leaner backups. In addition, VSPEX provides customers with flexibility of choices when selecting a hypervisor, server, and network to address the requirements of their SQL Server 2012 environments. 12

13 Chapter 1: Introduction The design methodology and best practices of EMC backup and recovery systems are to: Reduce the customer s backup storage requirements and costs Meet backup windows Enable fast disk-based recovery Scope This describes how to design an EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 environments running on a VMware vsphere or Microsoft Hyper-V Proven Infrastructure. It assumes that a VSPEX Private Cloud already exists in the customer environment. The guide provides examples of deployments on both a VNX and an EMC VNXe storage array. Furthermore, it illustrates how to size SQL Server 2012 on the VSPEX infrastructures, allocate resources following best practices, and use all the benefits that VSPEX offers. Audience This guide is intended for internal EMC personnel and qualified EMC VSPEX Partners. The guide assumes that VSPEX Partners who intend to deploy this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server are: Qualified by Microsoft to sell and implement SQL Server solutions Certified in SQL Server, ideally with one or all of the following Microsoft certifications: Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) Microsoft Certified Solutions Master (MCSM) Qualified by EMC to sell, install, and configure the VNX family of storage systems Certified to sell VSPEX Proven Infrastructures Qualified to sell, install, and configure the network and server products required for VSPEX Proven Infrastructures Readers must also have the necessary technical training and background to install and configure: EMC VNX and VNXe VMware vsphere or Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization platforms Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Microsoft SQL Server 2012 EMC next-generation backup, which includes Avamar and Data Domain 13

14 Chapter 1: Introduction External references are provided where applicable and EMC recommends that readers are familiar with these documents. For details, see Essential reading. 14

15 Chapter 1: Introduction Terminology Table 1 includes the terminology used in this guide. Table 1. Terminology Term AD CIFS CSV DNS DRS File group FAST Cache IOPS iscsi LACP LSN NFS NIC NL-SAS NTFS NUMA OLTP PCIe Reference virtual machine RTM tempdb TPS VDI VMDK Definition Active Directory Common Internet File System Cluster-shared volume Domain name system Distributed Resource Scheduler SQL Server database objects and files group A feature on EMC CLARiiON, EMC Celerra unified, and EMC VNX series storage systems that enables you to use the lower response time and better IOPS of Flash drives for specific applications. Input/output operations per second Internet Small Computer System Link Aggregation Control Protocol Log sequence number Network File System Network interface card Near-line serial-attached SCSI New Technology File System Non-Uniform Memory Architecture Online transaction processing. Typical applications of OLTP include data entry and retrieval transaction processing. Peripheral Component Interconnect Express Represents a unit of measure for a single virtual machine to quantify the compute resources in a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Release to manufacturing Tempdb refers to a system database used by Microsoft SQL Server as a temporary working area during processing. Transactions per second Virtual Device Interface Virtual Machine Disk 15

16 Chapter 1: Introduction Term VMFS VHDX Definition Virtual Machine File System Hyper-V virtual hard disk format 16

17 Chapter 2 Before You Start This chapter presents the following topics: Documentation workflow overview Essential reading

18 Chapter 2: Before You Start Documentation workflow overview EMC recommends that you refer to the process flow in Table 2 to design and implement your VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server Table 2. Step VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server 2012 deployment process Action 1 Use the VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server qualification worksheet to collect user requirements. The one-page Qualification worksheet is in Appendix A of this. 2 Use the VSPEX Sizing Tool to determine the recommended VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server 2012 based on the user requirements collected in step 1. For more information about the VSPEX Sizing Tool, refer to the VSPEX Sizing Tool on the EMC Business Value Portal. Note In the event that the VSPEX Sizing Tool is not available, you can manually size the application using the sizing guidelines in Appendix B. 3 To determine your final design for the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server, refer to this. Note Ensure that all application requirements are considered, and not just this particular application. 4 To select and order the right VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, refer to the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure section. 5 To deploy and test your VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server 2012, refer to the Implementation Guides for SQL Server section. Essential reading EMC recommends that you read the following documents, available from VSPEX space in the EMC Community Network or from EMC.com or the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure partner portal. Solution Overviews Implementation Guides for SQL Server VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Refer to the following VSPEX Solution Overview documents: EMC VSPEX Server Virtualization Solutions for Mid-market Businesses EMC VSPEX Server Virtualization Solutions for Small and Medium Business Refer to the following VSPEX Implementation Guides: with Microsoft Hyper-V with VMware vsphere Refer to the following VSPEX Proven Infrastructures: EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vsphere 5.1 for up to 100 Virtual Machines EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vsphere 5.1 for up to 100 Virtual Machines 18

19 Chapter 2: Before You Start EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vsphere 5.1 for up to 500 Virtual Machines EMC VSPEX Private Cloud Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V for up to 100 Virtual Machines EMC VSPEX Private Cloud Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V for up to 500 Virtual Machines 19

20 Chapter 2: Before You Start 20

21 Chapter 3 Solution Overview This chapter presents the following topic: Overview Solution architecture Key components

22 Chapter 3: Solution Overview Overview Solution architecture This chapter provides an overview of the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized Microsoft SQL Server and the key technologies used in this solution. This VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server supports all VSPEX offerings on VMware vsphere and Microsoft Hyper-V. This VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server solution was validated using VSPEX Private Cloud running VMware or Hyper-V virtualized Windows on EMC VNX family storage arrays to provide storage and server hardware consolidation. The solution is layered on a VSPEX Private Cloud, which uses servers, storage, network, backup and recovery (optional), and SQL Server components that focus on small and midrange environments. The solution enables customers to quickly and consistently deploy a small or medium virtualized SQL Server environment in a VSPEX Private Cloud. The VNX and VNXe family storage arrays are multiprotocol platforms that can support the iscsi, NFS, CIFS, FC, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) protocols depending on a customer s specific needs. This solution was validated using NFS and iscsi for data storage. This solution requires the presence of Active Directory (AD) and Domain Name System (DNS). The implementation of these services is beyond the scope of this guide, but the services are considered prerequisites for a successful deployment. Figure 1 shows the architecture that characterizes the validated VSPEX Proven infrastructure for SQL Server SQL Server is deployed as virtual machines on VMware vsphere 5.1 or Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V. We 1 used the VSPEX Sizing Tool for each SQL Server instance to determine the number of SQL Server virtual machines, the detailed compute resources, and the recommended storage layout. This storage layout is in addition to the VSPEX private cloud pool in the VNX or VNXe series. The optional backup and recovery components of the solution provide data protection to the SQL Server OLTP-focused instance. 1 In this guide, "we" refers to the EMC Solutions engineering team that validated the solution. 22

23 Chapter 3: Solution Overview Figure 1. Architecture of the validated infrastructure Key components Introduction This section provides an overview of the key technologies used in this solution: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure: VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Reference virtual machine VMware vsphere 5.1 Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V EMC VNX family EMC Unisphere EMC Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) for VMware vsphere EMC VNX VMware vstorage API for Array Integration Support (VAAI) 23

24 Chapter 3: Solution Overview EMC Storage Integrator EMC XtremSW Cache EMC Avamar EMC Data Domain EMC PowerPath/VE Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 is Microsoft s database management and analysis system for e-commerce, line-of-business, and data warehousing solutions. SQL Server is widely used to store, retrieve, and manage application data. Because it is used with a range of applications, and each application has different requirements for performance, sizing, availability, recoverability, manageability, and so on, it is important to fully understand these factors and plan accordingly when deploying SQL Server. EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure EMC has joined forces with the industry s leading providers of IT infrastructure to create a complete virtualization solution that accelerates the deployment of private cloud. VSPEX enables faster deployment, greater simplicity and choice, higher efficiency, and lower risk. Validation by EMC ensures predictable performance and enables customers to select technology that uses their existing IT infrastructure while eliminating planning, sizing, and configuration burdens. VSPEX provides a virtual infrastructure for customers looking to gain the simplicity that is characteristic of truly converged infrastructures, while at the same time gaining more choice in individual stack components. VSPEX solutions are proven by EMC and packaged and sold exclusively by EMC channel partners. VSPEX provides channel partners with more opportunity, a faster sales cycle, and end-to-end enablement. By working closely together, EMC and its channel partners can now deliver infrastructure that accelerates the journey to the cloud for even more customers. VSPEX Proven Infrastructure VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, as shown in Figure 2, is a modular, virtualized infrastructure validated by EMC and delivered by EMC s VSPEX partners. VSPEX includes a virtualization layer, server, network, and storage, designed by EMC to deliver reliable and predictable performance. 24

25 Chapter 3: Solution Overview Figure 2. VSPEX Proven Infrastructure VSPEX provides the flexibility to choose network, server, and virtualization technologies that fit a customer s environment to create a complete virtualization solution. VSPEX delivers faster deployment for EMC partner customers, with greater simplicity and efficiency, more choice, and lower risk to a customer s business. For more information about VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, refer to the following documents: EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vsphere 5.1 for up to 500 Virtual Machines EMC VSPEX Private Cloud Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V for up to 500 Virtual Machines EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vsphere 5.1 for up to 100 Virtual Machines EMC VSPEX Private Cloud Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V for up to 100 Virtual Machines Reference virtual machine To simplify the virtual infrastructure discussion, the VSPEX solution has defined a reference virtual machine to represent a measure unit. By comparing your actual customer usage to this reference workload, you can extrapolate which reference architecture to choose. For VSPEX solutions, the reference virtual machine defines a unit of measure for compute resources in the VSPEX virtual infrastructure. This reference virtual machine has the following characteristics, as shown in Table 3. 25

26 Chapter 3: Solution Overview Table 3. Reference virtual machine characteristics Characteristic Virtual processors per virtual machine 1 Value RAM per virtual machine Available storage capacity per virtual machine 2 GB 100 GB Input/output operations per second (IOPS) per virtual machine 25 I/O pattern Random I/O read:write ratio 2:1 For more information about a reference virtual machine and its characteristics, refer to the relevant documents in the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure section. VMware vsphere 5.1 VMware vsphere 5.1 transforms a computer s physical resources by virtualizing the CPU, RAM, hard disk, and network controller. This transformation creates fully functional virtual machines that run isolated and encapsulated operating systems and applications just like physical computers. VMware High Availability (HA) provides easy-to-use, cost-effective high availability for applications running in virtual machines. The VMware vsphere vmotion and VMware vsphere Storage vmotion features of vsphere 5.1 enable the seamless migration of virtual machines and stored files from one vsphere server to another, with minimal or no performance impact. Coupled with VMware vsphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and VMware vsphere Storage DRS, virtual machines have access to the appropriate resources at any point in time through load balancing of compute and storage resources. Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V provides a complete virtualization platform, which offers increased scalability and performance with a flexible solution from the data center to the cloud. It makes it easier for organizations to realize the cost savings from virtualization and to optimize server hardware investments. Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V high-availability options include incremental backup support, enhancements in clustered environments to support virtual adapters within the virtual machine, and inbox NIC Teaming. In Hyper-V, shared nothing live migration enables the migration of a virtual machine from a server running Hyper-V to another one without the need for both of them to be in the same cluster or to share storage. EMC VNX family The EMC VNX family of storage arrays are optimized for virtual applications delivering industry-leading innovation and enterprise capabilities for file, block, and object storage in a scalable, easy-to-use solution. This next-generation storage platform combines powerful and flexible hardware with advanced efficiency, management, and protection software to meet the demanding needs of today s enterprises. 26

27 Chapter 3: Solution Overview The VNX series is powered by Intel Xeon processors, for intelligent storage that automatically and efficiently scales in performance, while ensuring data integrity and security. The VNXe series is purpose-built for the IT manager in smaller environments. The VNX series is designed to meet the high-performance, high-scalability requirements of midsize and large enterprises. VNX features VNX supports the following features: Next-generation unified storage, optimized for virtualized applications Capacity optimization features including compression, deduplication, thin provisioning, and application-centric copies High availability, designed to deliver five 9s ( percent) availability Automated tiering with FAST VP (Fully Automated Storage Tiering for VSPEX private cloud pools and FAST Cache that can be optimized for the highest system performance and lowest storage cost simultaneously Simplified management with EMC Unisphere for a single management interface for all network-attached storage (NAS), storage area network (SAN), and replication needs Up to three times improvement in performance with the latest Intel Xeon multicore processor technology, optimized for Flash VNXe features VNXe supports the following features: Next-generation unified storage, optimized for virtualized applications Capacity optimization features including compression, deduplication, thin provisioning, and application-centric copies High availability, designed to deliver five 9s availability Multiprotocol support for file and block Simplified management with Unisphere for a single management interface for all NAS, SAN, and replication needs VNX software suites available Table 4 lists the software suites that are available with VNX: Table 4. VNX software suites Component FAST Suite Local Protection Suite Features Automatically optimizes for the highest system performance and the lowest storage cost simultaneously Practices safe data protection and repurposing 27

28 Chapter 3: Solution Overview Component Remote Protection Suite Application Protection Suite Security and Compliance Suite Features Protects data against localized failures, outages, and disasters Automates application copies and proves compliance Keeps data safe from changes, deletions, and malicious activity VNXe software suites available Table 5 lists the software suites that are available with VNXe: Table 5. VNXe software suites Component Local Protection Suite Remote Protection Suite Application Protection Suite Security and Compliance Suite Features Increases productivity with snapshots of production data Protects data against localized failures, outages, and disasters Automates application copies and proves compliance Keeps data safe from changes, deletions, and malicious activity VNX software suites available Table 6 lists the software packs that are available with VNX: Table 6. VNX software packs Component Total Efficiency Pack Total Protection Pack Features Includes all five software suites Includes local, remote, and application protection suites EMC Unisphere EMC Unisphere is the next-generation unified storage management platform that provides intuitive user interfaces for the newest range of unified platforms including the EMC VNX and EMC VNXe series. Unisphere s approach to storage management fosters simplicity, flexibility, self-help, and automation all key requirements for the journey to the cloud. Unisphere can be customized to the needs of a midsize company, a department within large enterprises, or a smaller remote office/branch office type environment. With pluggable architecture, Unisphere is easily extensible and continues its seamless support for additional EMC offerings, including integration with data protection and security. EMC Virtual Storage Integrator for VMware vsphere EMC Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) for VMware vsphere is a plug-in for the vsphere client that provides a single management interface, which is used for managing EMC storage within the vsphere environment. Features can be added and removed from VSI independently, which provides flexibility for customizing VSI user environments. Features are managed by using the VSI Feature Manager. VSI provides a unified user 28

29 Chapter 3: Solution Overview experience, which enables new features to be introduced rapidly in response to changing customer requirements. We used the following features during validation testing: Storage Viewer (SV): Extends the vsphere client to facilitate the discovery and identification of the VNX storage devices that are allocated to vsphere hosts and virtual machines. SV presents the underlying storage details to the virtual datacenter administrator, merging the data of several different storage mapping tools into a few seamless vsphere client views. Unified Storage Management: Simplifies storage administration of the VNX unified storage platform. It enables VMware administrators to provision new network file system (NFS) and virtual machine file system (VMFS) data stores, and raw device mapping (RDM) volumes seamlessly within vsphere client. VNX VMware vstorage API for Array Integration support Hardware acceleration with VMware vstorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) is a storage enhancement in vsphere 5.1 that enables vsphere to offload specific storage operations to compatible storage hardware such as the VNX series platforms. With storage hardware assistance, vsphere performs these operations faster and consumes less CPU, memory, and storage fabric bandwidth. EMC Storage Integrator EMC Storage Integrator (ESI) is an agent-less, no-charge plug-in that enables application-aware storage provisioning for Microsoft Windows server applications, Hyper-V, VMware, and Xen Server environments. It provides the ability for administrators to easily provision block and file storage for Windows or SQL Server sites using wizards. ESI supports the following capabilities: Provisioning, formatting, and presenting drives to Windows servers Provisioning new cluster disks and adding them to the cluster automatically Provisioning shared CIFS storage and mounting it to Windows servers Provisioning SQL Server storage, sites, and databases in a single wizard EMC XtremSW Cache EMC XtremSW Cache is a server Flash-caching solution that reduces latency and increases throughput. By leveraging intelligent caching software and Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) Flash technology, XtremSW Cache dramatically improves application performance. XtremSW Cache software caches the most frequently used data on the server-based PCIe card, thereby putting the data closer to the application. The XtremSW Cache caching optimization automatically adapts to changing workloads by determining which data is most frequently referenced and promoting it to the server Flash cache. This means that the hottest (most active) data automatically resides on the PCIe card of the server for faster access. XtremSW Cache offloads the read traffic from the storage array, which allows it to allocate greater processing power to other applications. While one application is accelerated with XtremSW Cache, the array s performance for other application is maintained or even slightly enhanced. 29

30 Chapter 3: Solution Overview EMC Avamar If you decide to implement a backup solution, EMC recommends EMC Avamar. Avamar deduplication backup software and system performs variable-length deduplication at the client, so that backup data is reduced before it moves across networks (LAN or WAN). Avamar identifies duplicate data segments and sends only unique segments across the network to the backup appliance. This means shorter backup windows, less backup storage consumed, and maximum use of available bandwidth. Avamar provides: Flexible deployment options. Avamar offers flexibility in solution deployments, depending on the specific use case and recovery requirements. Avamar is a turnkey backup and recovery solution that integrates with EMC-certified hardware for streamlined deployment. Scalability, high availability, and reliability. Avamar uses a scalable grid architecture, which enables linear performance and storage scaling by simply adding storage nodes. Manageability and support. You can securely access Avamar systems through existing network links and integrate them with management frameworks to use SNMP for remote access. EMC Data Domain If you use Avamar to implement a backup and recovery solution, you can choose to direct backups to an EMC Data Domain system instead of to the Avamar server. EMC Data Domain deduplication storage system deduplicates data inline so that the data lands on disk already deduplicated, which requires less disk space than the original dataset. With Data Domain, you can retain backup and archive data on site longer to quickly and reliably restore data from disk. The Data Domain software suite includes the following options: EMC Data Domain Replication Virtual Tape Library (VTL) Data Domain Boost Retention Lock Encryption Extended Retention EMC PowerPath/VE EMC PowerPath /VE provides intelligent, high-performance path management with path failover and load balancing optimized for EMC and selected third-party storage systems. PowerPath/VE supports multiple paths between a vsphere host and an external storage device. Having multiple paths enables the vsphere host to access a storage device, even if a specific path is unavailable. Multiple paths can also share the I/O traffic to a storage device. PowerPath/VE is particularly beneficial in highly available environments because it can prevent operational interruptions and downtime. The PowerPath/VE path failover capability avoids host failure by maintaining uninterrupted application support on the host in the event of a path failure (if another path is available). 30

31 Chapter 3: Solution Overview PowerPath/VE works with VMware ESXi as a Multipath Plug-in (MPP) that provides path management to hosts. It is installed as a kernel module on the vsphere host. It plugs in to the vsphere I/O stack framework to bring the advanced multipathing capabilities of PowerPath/VE including dynamic load balancing and automatic failover, to the vsphere hosts. 31

32 Chapter 3: Solution Overview 32

33 Chapter 4 Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure This chapter presents the following topics: Overview Step 1: Evaluate the customer use case Step 2: Design the application architectures Step 3: Choose the right VSPEX Proven Infrastructure

34 Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Overview This chapter describes how to design the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server and how to choose the right VSPEX solution to meet your requirements. Table 7 outlines the main steps you need to complete when selecting a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. Table 7. VSPEX Proven Infrastructure selection steps Step Action 1 Evaluate the customer SQL Server workload by using the VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server qualification worksheet, based on the business requirement. See Step 1: Evaluate the customer use case. 2 Determine the required infrastructure, SQL Server resources, and architecture using the VSPEX Sizing Tool. See Step 2: Design the application architectures. Note In the event that the VXPEX Sizing Tool is not available, you can manually size the application using the sizing guidelines in Appendix B. 3 Choose the right VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, based on the recommendations provided in step 2. See Step 3: Choose the right VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. Step 1: Evaluate the customer use case Before deploying VSPEX for virtualized Microsoft SQL Server 2012, it is important to gather and understand the infrastructure requirements, limitations, and the estimated workload, in order to design the SQL Server environment properly. To help you to better understand the customer s business requirements for the VSPEX infrastructure design, EMC strongly recommends that you use the VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server qualification worksheet when evaluating the workload requirements for the VSPEX solution. VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server qualification worksheet The VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server qualification worksheet presents a list of simple questions to help identify customer requirements, usage characteristics, and dataset. For a one-page EMC qualification worksheet for the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server, see the Qualification worksheet in Appendix A. Table 8 provides a detailed explanation of the questionnaire and general guidance on how to determine the input values. 34

35 Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Table 8. VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server 2012 qualification worksheet questionnaire Question Do you have an existing SQL Server database that you would like to size for in the environment? How many databases to be deployed? What is the size of user database? What is the estimated annual growth rate (%)? Do you intend to use FAST Cache? What is the maximum number of IOPS the system should support? What is the expected transactions per second (TPS) at peak loads (optional question)? What is the required tempdb size (optional question)? Description Choose Yes if the customer already has a SQL Server database and understand its characteristics that are going to migrate to VSPEX Private Cloud in the VSPEX environment. Otherwise choose No. Enter the database number that the customer expects to deploy in the VSPEX environment. Enter the database size that the customer expects to have in the VSPEX environment. Future growth is a key characteristic of the VSPEX solution. This value is the expected annual growth rate of user database in three years. Enter a number that is appropriate for customer s environment. FAST Cache is best for small random I/O where data has skew by using Flash drives as storage cache. That means the higher the locality of the accessed data, the better the FAST Cache benefits. When the application has high skew with the I/O pattern that can be beneficial from FAST Cache, customers can enable FAST Cache for the decreases of latency and increase of throughput. Understanding the maximum number of IOPS of SQL databases can help to prevent potential storage performance issues. If the customer can estimate the IOPS at peak loads in their environment, enter that number. The TPS is a key characteristic of the user database. If the customer can estimate the TPS at peak loads in their environment, enter that number. The required tempdb size for user to input. This is an optional input and if the customer cannot estimate the space requirement of tempdb, the question can be skipped. Step 2: Design the application architectures VSPEX Sizing Tool Principle and guidelines In this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure solution, we defined a representative customer reference workload to be sized. The VSPEX Proven Infrastructure reference architectures create a pool of resources that are sufficient to host a target number of reference virtual machines with the characteristics shown in Table 3. For more 35

36 Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure information about a reference virtual machine and its characteristics, refer to the relevant documents in the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure section. VSPEX Sizing Tool output: requirements and recommendations The VSPEX Sizing Tool enables you to input a database configuration from the customer s answers in the qualification worksheet. After you complete the inputs to the VSPEX Sizing Tool, the tool generates a series of recommendations, as listed in Table 9. Table 9. VSPEX Sizing Tool output Type Description Reference vcpu The number of vcpus to configure for each SQL Server virtual machine Reference virtual machine best practices for SQL Server Memory Storage layout for SQL Server databases Total reference virtual machine The amount of memory suggested to configure for each SQL Server virtual machine Suggested user database pool configuration on VNX or VNXe Total reference virtual machines required in the virtual infrastructure for all the SQL databases. Reference virtual machine best practices for SQL Server Storage layout and design considerations N/A For more information, see the examples in Step 3: Choose the right VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. Reference virtual machine best practices for SQL Server The VSPEX Sizing Tool provides detailed best practice recommendations for sizing the reference virtual machine based on the following basic resource types for each SQL Server: vcpu resources Memory resources Operating system (OS) capacity resources OS IOPS This section describes the resource types, how they are used in the VSPEX Sizing Tool, and key considerations and best practices for a customer environment. vcpu resources best practices The calculator provides the vcpu of the reference virtual machine measurement unit consumed for each SQL Server instance from the virtual infrastructure. The CPU type must meet or exceed the defined CPU or processor models as defined in the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. We validated this VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server solution with a statically assigned processor, and no virtual-to-physical CPU oversubscription. In SQL Server deployments, EMC recommends the following: 36

37 Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Enable Hardware Assisted Virtualization for CPU and Hardware Assisted Virtualization for Memory Management Unit (MMU) at BIOS level if the processors support those functions. Maintain a 1:1 ratio of physical cores to vcpus for business-critical or tier-1 workloads. Extend the Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA) architecture to the guest OS while keeping the NUMA node size in mind when sizing virtual machine, because SQL Server automatically detects NUMA architecture. The vcpu allocated to the SQL virtual machine should not be larger than the number of cores in each physical NUMA node, so that all memory access will be local to that NUMA node. This provides the lowest memory access latencies. Memory resources best practices The VSPEX Sizing Tool shows the recommended memory for the Reference virtual machine measurement unit for each SQL Server instance. We validated this VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server solution with statically assigned memory, no over-commitment of memory resources, and memory swapping or ballooning. The memory values provided in the tool are not hard limits but represent the value that was tested in the VSPEX solution. In most production SQL Server deployments, EMC recommends that you allocate at least 8 GB of memory to SQL Server virtual machine and reserve at least 2 GB for the OS. To avoid accessing remote memory in a NUMA-aware environment, EMC recommends you size a SQL Server virtual machine's memory with less than the amount available per NUMA node. For information about the SQL Server memory recommendations in this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, refer to the Virtualization design considerations section. OS capacity resources best practices The VSPEX Sizing Tool shows the recommended capacity of the reference virtual machine measurement unit suggested for the operating system for each SQL Server instance. EMC recommends that you put the OS volume into the VSPEX private cloud pool, as described in the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure documentation. For more information about the VSPEX private cloud pool, see the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure section. In small and medium-sized SQL Server deployments, EMC recommends that you allocate 100 GB of disk space for the OS. OS IOPS best practices The calculator logic used in the VSPEX sizing tool recommends the estimated IOPS of the reference virtual machine measurement unit suggested for each SQL Server in the OS. EMC recommends that you put the OS volume into the VSPEX private cloud pool. For more information, see the examples in the section Step 3: Choose the right VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. 37

38 Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Additional considerations After you obtain a recommended sizing guide from the VSPEX Sizing Tool, you may need to consider the future data growth. It is important to plan for growth so that the environment can continue to deliver an effective business solution. To maintain performance targets and accommodate growth, the VSPEX Sizing Tool enables customers to select from one to three years growth. The cost of over-investment in hardware is usually far less than the cumulative expense of troubleshooting problems caused by undersizing. Step 3: Choose the right VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Considerations The VSPEX program has produced numerous solutions designed to simplify the deployment of a consolidated virtual infrastructure using vsphere, Hyper-V, the VNX and VNXe series of products, and EMC next-generation backup. When the application architecture has been confirmed using the VSPEX Sizing Tool, you can choose the right VSPEX Proven Infrastructure based on the calculated results. Note While this is intended for SQL Server requirements, this may not be the only application deployed on the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. You must carefully take into account the requirements for each application you plan to deploy. If you are uncertain about the best VSPEX Proven Infrastructure to deploy, consult EMC before making the decision. Follow the steps shown in Table 10 when choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. Table 10. Step VSPEX Proven Infrastructure: Selection steps Action 1 Use the VSPEX Sizing Tool to get the total number of reference virtual machines and any additional suggested storage layout for SQL Server. 2 Use the VSPEX Sizing Tool to design the resource requirements for other applications, based on business needs. The VSPEX Sizing Tool calculates the total number of required reference virtual machines and additional recommended storage layouts for both SQL Server and other applications. 3 Discuss with your customers the maximum utilization of VSPEX Proven Infrastructure that meets their business requirements this is the maximum utilization for both SQL Server and other applications. Input the maximum utilization percentage of the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure in the VSPEX Sizing Tool. The tool provides a minimum recommendation for the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure offering. 4 Select your network vendor and hypervisor software vendor for the recommended VSPEX Proven Infrastructure offering. For more information, visit the EMC VSPEX website. For more information about the required reference virtual machines, refer to the relevant sizing section in VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. 38

39 Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Examples This section describes the following three examples: A small-sized SQL Server 2012 OLTP instance with a single user database A medium-sized SQL Server 2012 OLTP instance with a single user database A medium-sized SQL Server 2012 OLTP instance with multiple user databases It also demonstrates how you would select the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for each one. Example 1: Small-sized SQL Server OLTP instance with a single user database In this scenario, a customer would like to create a small-sized SQL Server 2012 OLTP instance on a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. The customer has a 50 GB user database. The expected number of transactions per second (TPS) on the database is 200, and the expected IOPS is 525. Customers would like to use at most 75 percent of the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for combined applications. After talking to the customer, complete the qualification worksheet for the production SQL Server 2012 database, as shown in the example in Table 11. Table 11. Example qualification worksheet: Small-sized SQL Server OLTP instance Question Do you have an existing SQL Server database that you would like to size for in the environment? Example answer Yes How many databases do you want to deploy? 1 What is the size of user databases (GB)? 50 What is the annual growth rate (%)? 30 Do you intend to use FAST Cache? No What is the maximum number of IOPS? 525 What are the TPS at peak loads (optional question)? 200 What is the required tempdb size (optional question)? N/A After inputting the answers from the qualification worksheet into the VSPEX Sizing Tool, the tool generates a series of recommendations for the resources needed from the VSPEX private cloud pool, as shown in the example in Table 12. In this case, therefore, implementing this small-sized SQL Server on a VSPEX private cloud pool would consume the resources of four reference virtual machines, which is the maximum of the required reference virtual machines for the compute resources. 39

40 Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Table 12. Example of required resources: Small-sized SQL Server OLTP instance SQL Server vcpu Memory (GB) OS volume capacity (GB) SQL Server 2 vcpus (2 reference virtual machines) 8 GB (4 reference virtual machines) Less than 100 GB (1 reference virtual machine) OS volume IOPS Less than 25 IOPS (1 reference virtual machine) Total reference virtual machines 4 Note In this guide, we used the resources shown in Table 12 for the small-sized SQL Server user database. The values of individual resources (CPU, memory, capacity, and IOPS) are rounded up to the closest whole number, to determine the equivalent reference virtual machines required for each SQL Server instance. For example, the SQL Server instance for the medium-sized user database requires two vcpus, 8 GB of memory, 100 GB of storage, and 25 IOPS. This translates to: Two reference virtual machines for the CPU requirement Four reference virtual machines for the memory requirement One reference virtual machine for the capacity requirement One reference virtual machine for the IOPS requirement We should use the maximum reference virtual machines to support the performance requirement, therefore the recommended reference virtual machine number should be four for the designed SQL Server instance, multiplied by the number of virtual machines needed (one in this example), which results in four reference virtual machines in total. For more details about how to determine the equivalent reference virtual machines, refer to the appropriate document in Essential reading. The VSPEX Sizing Tool also lists recommendations for the storage layout as shown in Table 13. Table 13. Example of SQL Server details in VSPEX Sizing Tool VSPEX configuration suggestions (total reference virtual machines) 4 Recommended additional storage layout for SQL databases VXPEX private cloud pool name RAID type Disk type Disk capacity Disk no. SQL Server user database datapool RAID 5 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 10 SQL Server OLTP database log and tempdb pool RAID 1/0 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 6 40

41 Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure The suggested storage layout is in addition to the VSPEX VNXe private cloud pool as shown in Figure 3. For more information, see the Principle and guidelines in the VSPEX Sizing Tool section. Figure 3. Storage layout and LUN design SQL Server is the only component planned for deployment on this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. EMC recommends that customers consider the following two VSPEX infrastructures for the best fit with their requirements: EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vsphere 5.1 for up to 100 virtual machines EMC VSPEX Private Cloud Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V for up to 100 virtual machines Implementing this small-sized SQL Server OLTP instance on a pool for 50 reference virtual machines consumes the resources of four reference virtual machines and leaves resources for 46 reference virtual machines for other applications. Note This is not a hard limit; you can select larger VSPEX Proven Infrastructures if requirements from multiple applications make it necessary. In the Implementation Guide, we used Microsoft Hyper-V for 50 virtual machines as a VSPEX solution example. For more information, refer to the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure section. Example 2: Medium-sized SQL Server OLTP instance with a single user database In this scenario, a customer would like to create a medium-sized SQL Server 2012 OLTP instance on a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. The customer has a 250 GB database. The expected transactions per second is 500, while the expected IOPS is 2,000. The customer also planned for other applications such as Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint Server, in the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, with a total of

42 Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure reference virtual machines required for the combined applications these applications are outside the scope of this. In addition, the customer would like to use at most 75 percent of the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for combined applications. After talking to the customer, complete the VSPEX qualification worksheet for the production SQL Server 2012 database, as in the example in Table 14. Table 14. Example VSPEX qualification worksheet: Medium-sized SQL Server user database Question Do you have an existing SQL Server database that you would like to size for in the environment? Example answer Yes How many databases do you want to deploy? 1 What is the size of user databases (GB)? 250 What is the annual growth rate (%)? 10 Do you intend to use FAST Cache? Yes What is the maximum number of IOPS? 2,000 What are the TPS at peak loads (optional question)? 500 What is the required tempdb size (optional question)? N/A After inputting the answers from the qualification worksheet into the VSPEX Sizing Tool, the tool generates a series of recommendations for the resources needed from the VSPEX private cloud pool, as shown in the example in Table 15. Table 15. Example of required resources: Medium-sized SQL Server OLTP instance SQL Server vcpu Memory (GB) OS volume capacity (GB) SQL Server 4 vcpus (4 reference virtual machines) 16 (8 reference virtual machines) Less than 100 GB (1 reference virtual machine) OS volume IOPS Less than 25 IOPS (1 reference virtual machine) Total reference virtual machine 8 The VSPEX Sizing Tool also lists recommendations for the storage layout, as shown in Table 16. In this case, therefore, implementing this medium-sized SQL Server OLTP instance on a VSPEX private cloud pool would consume the resources of eight reference virtual machines. The suggested storage layout is in addition to the VSPEX private cloud pool. For more information, see the Principle and guidelines in the VSPEX Sizing Tool section. 42

43 Table 16. Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Example summary: Medium-sized SQL Server user database in VSPEX Sizing Tool VSPEX configuration recommendations (total reference virtual machines) 8 Recommended additional storage layout for SQL Server 2012 VSPEX private cloud pool name RAID type Disk type Disk capacity Disk no. SQL Server OLTP database data pool RAID 5 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 5 SQL Server OLTP log and tempdb pool RAID 1/0 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 4 FAST Cache RAID 1 Flash disks 100 GB 2 As SQL Server is not the only application that the customer needs to plan for in the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, EMC recommends using the VSPEX Sizing Tool to design the combined applications workload that has the best fit with the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure offering. Because the total combined applications required 180 reference virtual machines and the customer requested at most 75 percent utilization of the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, EMC recommends that customers consider the following two VSPEX infrastructures for the best fit with their requirements: EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vsphere 5.1 for up to 500 Virtual Machines EMC VSPEX Private Cloud Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V for up to 500 Virtual Machines Implementing this medium-sized SQL Server OLTP instance on a pool for 180 reference virtual machines consumes the resources of eight reference virtual machines and leaves resources for 172 reference virtual machines for other applications. The suggested storage layout is in addition to the VSPEX private cloud pool to store the SQL Server database. For more information, see the Principle and guidelines in the VSPEX Sizing Tool section. Example 3: Medium-sized SQL Server OLTP instance with multiple databases In this scenario, a customer would like to create several user databases on a SQL Server 2012 OLTP instance on a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. The customer has three user databases. The database size and expected TPS and IOPS are listed in Table 17. The customer also planned for other applications such as Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint Server, in the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, with a total of 250 reference virtual machines required for the combined applications these applications are outside the scope of this. In addition, the customer would like to use at most 75 percent of the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for combined applications. 43

44 Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Table 17. Example user profiles: User databases requirement Database profile Maximum DB size (GB) Maximum IOPS TPS at peak load (optional) db , db db After talking to the customer, complete the qualification worksheet for each production SQL Server 2012 database, as shown in the example in Table 18. Table 18. Example qualification worksheet: SQL Server OLTP instance with multiple user databases Question Do you have an existing SQL Server database that you would like to size for in the environment? Example answer Yes How many databases do you want to deploy? 3 What is the size of user databases (GB)? 500/250/250 What is the annual growth rate (%)? 30 Do you intend to use FAST Cache? Yes What is the maximum number of IOPS? 1,500/700/100 What are the TPS at peak loads (optional question)? 500/300/30 What is the required tempdb size (optional question)? N/A After inputting the answers from the qualification worksheet into the VSPEX Sizing Tool, the tool generates a series of recommendations for the resources needed from the resource pool, as shown in Table 19. Table 19. Example of required resources: SQL Server OLTP instance with multiple user databases SQL Server vcpu Memory (GB) OS volume capacity (GB) SQL Server 16 vcpu (16 reference virtual machines) 64 GB (32 reference virtual machines) Less than 100 GB (1 reference virtual machine) OS volume IOPS Less than 25 IOPS (1 reference virtual machine) Total reference virtual machines 32 The VSPEX Sizing Tool also lists recommendations for the storage layout, as shown in Table 20. In this case, therefore, implementing this SQL Server on a VSPEX private cloud pool would consume the resources of 32 reference virtual machines. 44

45 Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure The suggested storage layout is in addition to the VSPEX private cloud pool. For more information, see the Principle and guidelines in the VSPEX Sizing Tool section. Table 20. Example of SQL Server details in VSPEX Sizing Tool VSPEX configuration suggestions (total reference virtual machine) 32 Recommended additional storage layout for SQL databases VSPEX private cloud pool name RAID type Disk type Disk capacity Disk no. SQL Server OLTP database datapool RAID 5 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 10 SQL Server OLTP database log and tempdb pool RAID 1/0 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 4 FAST Cache RAID 1/0 Flash disks 100 GB 2 Combined applications are planned for deployment on this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. EMC recommends that customers consider the following two VSPEX infrastructures for the best fit with their requirements: EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vsphere 5.1 for up to 500 virtual machines EMC VSPEX Private Cloud Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V for up to 500 virtual machines Implementing this SQL Server OLTP instance on a pool for 250 reference virtual machines consumes the resources of 32 reference virtual machines and leaves resources for 218 reference virtual machines for other applications. 45

46 Chapter 4: Choosing a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure 46

47 Chapter 5 Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices This chapter presents the following topics: Overview Network design considerations Storage layout and design considerations Virtualization design considerations Application design considerations Backup and recovery design considerations

48 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices Overview This chapter provides best practices and considerations for the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for the virtualized SQL Server solution. We considered the following aspects during the solution design: Network design Storage layout design Virtualization design Application design Backup and recovery design Network design considerations Overview of network design considerations Networking in the virtual world follows the same concepts as in the physical world, but some of these concepts are applied in the software instead of using physical cables and switches. Although many of the best practices that apply in the physical world continue to apply in the virtual world, there are additional considerations for traffic segmentation, availability and throughput. The advanced networking features of the VNXe and VNX series provide protection against network connection failures at the array. Meanwhile, each hypervisor host has multiple connections to user and storage Ethernet networks to guard against link failures. These connections should be spread across multiple Ethernet switches to guard against component failure in the network. The network connection for the boot volume of the VSPEX virtualized SQL Server can be FC, FCoE, and iscsi for NFS and CIFS on VNX, and iscsi for CIFS and NFS on VNXe. For more information, refer to the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure section. To bring SQL Server into your VSPEX infrastructure on VNX or VNXe, you need to set up additional iscsi connections for the SQL Server database, log, and tempdb files to be stored on the VNX iscsi storage. For more information, refer to the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure section. Design best practices In this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server, EMC recommends that you consider the following aspects for network design: Separate different network traffic Separate the virtual machine, storage, and vsphere vmotion or Microsoft Windows Hyper-V Live Migration network traffic using VLAN segmentation. Set up network redundancy A goal of redundant topologies is to eliminate network downtime caused by a single point of failure. All networks need redundancy for enhanced reliability. Network reliability is achieved through reliable equipment and network designs that are tolerant to failures and faults. Networks should be designed to recover rapidly so that the fault is bypassed. In this solution, we have two network switches and all three networks have their own redundant links. 48

49 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices Use network interface card (NIC) teaming Aggregate multiple network connections in parallel to increase the throughput beyond what a single connection can sustain, and to provide redundancy in case one of the links fails. For example, in the VMware virtualization environment, use two physical NICs per vswitch and uplink the physical NICs to separate physical switches. When setting the NIC teaming settings, it is considered best practice to select no for the NIC teaming failback option. If there is some intermittent behavior in the network, this will prevent flip-flopping of the NIC cards being used. When setting up VMware high availability (VMware HA), it is a good starting point to also set the following ESX Server timeouts and settings under the ESX Server advanced setting tab: NFS.HeartbeatFrequency = 12 NFS.HeartbeatTimeout = 5 NFS.HeartbeatMaxFailures = 10 For more NIC teaming best practices for VMware vsphere, refer to Best Practices for running VMware vsphere on Network Attached Storage. For the NIC teaming configuration of Windows 2012 in a Hyper-V virtualized environment, refer to the Microsoft TechNet topic NIC Teaming Overview. For other best practices in network design for the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, refer to the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure guide. Storage layout and design considerations Overview of storage layout and design considerations The best practice and design considerations in this section provide guidelines for effectively planning storage for various business requirements in SQL Server 2012 environments. Figure 4 shows the high-level architecture of the SQL Server components and storage elements validated in the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server on a vsphere virtualization platform. All the SQL Server volumes are stored in virtual machine disk (VMDK) format in a VMware virtualized environment. 49

50 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices Figure 4. SQL Server storage elements on VMware vsphere 5.1 platform In addition to the VSPEX private cloud pool for virtual machines, EMC recommends that you use the three additional VSPEX private cloud pools to store SQL Server data for different purposes. For more information, see Table 21. Table 21. SQL Server storage pools Pool name Purpose RAID recommendation VSPEX private cloud pool The private cloud pool where all the virtual machines reside. For details, refer to the appropriate VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. RAID 5 with SAS disks SQL Server data pool SQL Server log and tempdb pool The VSPEX private cloud pool to serve the data LUNs for user databases The VSPEX private cloud pool to serve the log and tempdb LUNs for user databases RAID 5 with SAS disks RAID 1/0 with SAS disks Figure 5 shows the high-level architecture of the SQL Server components and storage elements validated in the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for SQL Server on a Microsoft Window Server 2012 Hyper-V virtualization platform. 50

51 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices Figure 5. SQL Server storage elements on Hyper-V platform All the SQL Server volumes are stored in the new Hyper-V virtual hard disk format (VHDX) on the cluster-shared volume (CSV). For more information on additional VSPEX private cloud pools to store SQL Server data, see Table

52 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices Storage design EMC recommends implementing the following storage design best practices. Application storage pool design In this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server, consider the following best practices for application storage layout and design: SQL Server data pool: Use RAID 5 for the SQL Server data pool, unless the user database has an unusually high write ratio, which is over 30 percent). This pool consists of all the SQL Server user databases. Use SAS disks for a balance of performance and capacity. In our VSPEX Sizing Tool, the number of disks in each pool is calculated to meet both capacity and IOPS requirements. SQL Server log and tempdb pool: Use RAID 1/0 for the SQL Server log pool. This pool consists of all the log and tempdb LUNs for the user databases. Use SAS disks for both performance and capacity consideration. In our VSPEX Sizing Tool, the disk number of each pool is calculated to meet both capacity and IOPS requirements. For more information about best practices for the tempdb database, see the SQL Server database settings in the Application design considerations section. OS storage design In this solution, OS LUNs were created and provisioned by VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. For best practices about OS storage design, refer to the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure guide. OS LUN format unit Use 64 KB of the file allocation unit size (cluster size) for the SQL Server volumes. Cluster size is determined when the partition is formatted by the OS or user. For the best performance, EMC recommends using 64 KB for SQL databases. For more information, refer to the topic Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server in the MSDN Library. Component design best practices The usage patterns and workloads on SQL Server can vary greatly. While this guide caters and designs for typical deployments, as described by Microsoft and experienced by EMC, additional storage performance requirements may be demanded by certain highly active SQL Server environments. In such SQL Server environments, extreme performance demands are put on the storage to meet or exceed customer-driven response time SLAs and to continue to provide the best user experience. As SQL Server has various application scenarios, it can be difficult to manually analyze and provision storage designs, and to continue to meet those ever-changing requirements. 52

53 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices EMC provides the following optional components to accelerate the OLTP performance dynamically and automatically: FAST Suite (includes FAST Cache and FAST VP) XtremSW Cache This section introduces the best practices for these additional and optional components. FAST Suite (optional) The EMC FAST Suite FAST VP and FAST Cache provides two key technologies, available on the VNX series, that enable extreme performance in an automated fashion, when and where needed. FAST technology is an available option in VSPEX Proven Infrastructures. For more information on FAST Suite for VSPEX Proven Infrastructures, see the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure section. Enabling FAST Cache or FAST VP is a transparent operation to SQL Server and no reconfiguration or downtime is necessary. To make the best use of either of the FAST technologies, first enable FAST Cache on the SQL Server data storage pool. If FAST VP is the enabled technology on the VNX system, you can use this instead of FAST Cache, by adding additional Flash disks as an extreme performance tier into the SQL Server data pool. When using FAST VP, set the FAST policy for the participating pool LUNs to Start High then Auto-Tier (Recommended). For further information, refer to the best practices in the white paper EMC FAST VP for Unified Storage Systems. If FAST technology is enabled on the SQL Server data pool, the data LUN latency and tempdb LUN latencies will improve to aid the SQL Server user experience. FAST Suite design best practices Flash drives for FAST Cache When using Flash drives as FAST Cache, consider the following best practices: Place all Flash drives (up to eight drives) in enclosure 0_0. If you have more than eight drives, consider the following: Spread Flash drives across all available buses. Mirror drives within one enclosure, to avoid mirroring across enclosure 0_0. Flash drives for extreme performance FAST VP tier When using Flash drives as a FAST VP tier, consider the following best practices: Spread Flash drives across all available buses. Avoid using enclosure 0_0. For more information about FAST Suite design best practices, refer to EMC VNX Unified Best Practices for Performance: Applied Best Practices Guide. FAST Cache design considerations FAST Cache is best for small random I/O where data has skew. (The workload skew defines an asymmetry in data usage over time, which means that a small percentage 53

54 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices of the data on the array may be servicing the majority of the workload on the array.) The higher the locality is, the better the FAST Cache benefits. EMC recommends that you use the available Flash drives first for FAST Cache, which can globally benefit all LUNs in the storage system, and then supplement performance as needed with additional Flash drives in the storage pool tiers. Preferred application workloads for FAST Cache are listed as follows: Small-block random I/O applications with high locality High frequency of access to the same data Systems where current performance is limited by HDD capability, not Storage Processor (SP) capability Avoid enabling FAST Cache for LUNs that are not expected to benefit, such as when: The primary workload is sequential The primary workload is large-block I/O Avoid enabling FAST Cache for LUNs where the workload is small-block sequential, including: Database logs Circular logs Enabling FAST Cache on a running system FAST Cache can improve overall system performance if the current bottleneck is driverelated. However, boosting the IOPS will result in an increase in CPU utilization on the VNX SPs. Systems should be sized so that the maximum sustained utilization is 70 percent. Use Unisphere to check the SP CPU utilization and then proceed as follows: SP CPU utilization less than 60 percent Enable groups of LUNs or one pool at a time until they are equalized in the cache. Ensure that the SP CPU utilization is still acceptable before turning on FAST Cache for more LUNs/pools. SP CPU utilization of 60 to 80 percent Scale in carefully. Enable FAST Cache on one or two LUNs at a time, and verify that the SP CPU utilization does not go above 80 percent. SP CPU utilization greater than 80 percent Do not activate FAST Cache. Avoid enabling FAST Cache for a group of LUNs where the aggregate LUN capacity exceeds 20 times the total FAST Cache capacity. Enable FAST Cache on a subset of the LUNs first, and allow the LUNs to be equalized before adding the other LUNs. Note For storage pools, FAST Cache is a pool-wide feature so you have to enable/disable at the pool level (for all LUNs in the pool). 54

55 FAST VP best practices Pool capacity utilization Relocation Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices Maintain some unallocated capacity within the pool to help with relocation schedules when using FAST VP. Relocation will reclaim 10 percent free per tier. This space will be used to optimize relocation operations but also helps when new LUNs are being created that want to use the higher tiers. This is not a mandatory requirement and does not result in lost capacity. Schedule relocations for off-hours, so that the primary workload does not contend with the relocation activity. Enable FAST VP on a pool, even if the pool has only 1 tier, to provide ongoing load balancing of LUNs across available drives. Considerations for VNX for file By default, a VNX for file system-defined storage pool is created for every VNX for block storage pool that contains LUNs available to file. (This is a mapped storage pool.) All LUNs in a given file storage pool should have the same FAST VP tiering policy. Create a user-defined storage pool to separate the file LUNs from the same block storage pools that have different tiering policies. XtremSW Cache XtremSW Cache can use a host-based PCIe card as the host-side storage cache. Along with SAN storage, XtremSW Cache can dramatically reduce the I/O latency and improve the OLTP performance, while keeping the advantage of SAN storage. XtremSW Cache performance consideration and best practices EMC XtremSW Cache is a server Flash solution that reduces latency and increases throughput to dramatically improve application performance. XtremSW Cache can be used as a server-side caching solution to accelerate block I/O reads. Combining with the SAN storage, XtremSW Cache software can use a write-through cache to deliver dynamic optimization for performance, intelligence, and protection in both physical and virtual environments. Consider the following best practices when deploying XtremSW Cache in a virtualized environment: XtremSW Cache is most effective for workloads with a 70 percent or higher read-write ratio and small random I/O (8 KB is ideal). By default, data larger than 64 KB is passed through to the disk and not cached. This size is correct for most applications. For some applications, however, caching will be more effective by enabling data up to 128 KB to be cached. Use the vfcmt command line or GUI to set the maximum I/O size to be cached by XtremSW Cache. For more information, refer to VFCache Installation and Administration Guide

56 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices XtremSW Cache in Hyper-V When installing XtremSW Cache in the Hyper-V environment, pay attention to the following details: The XtremSW Cache card and driver, as well as the XtremSW Cache software, are installed on the Hyper-V host machine. As a result: Virtual disks can be defined either before or after configuring the LUN as a source device. All virtual disks allocated on a LUN source device will be accelerated. The installation procedure is identical to the procedure for Windows. Microsoft CSV is not supported by the current released version of XtremSW Cache (1.5.1). Therefore, the LUNs to be accelerated cannot be CSV LUNs in the Hyper-V cluster, but the clustered volumes in Hyper-V can be supported. For more information refer to EMC VFCache Installation and Administration Guide XtremSW Cache in VMware When installing XtremSW Cache in the VMware environment, pay attention to the following details: XtremSW Cache can be enabled to use disks for server-based storage. To enable this split card functionality, you must disable the interrupt mapping on your ESX host. For more information, refer to VFCache Installation Guide for VMware 1.5. Follow VFCache Installation Guide to configure the components in a VMware environment. For detailed information, refer to VFCache Installation Guide for VMware 1.5. Storage layout examples This section describes two example storage layouts in this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server one for VNXe, based on VSPEX private cloud, and the other for VNX, based on VSPEX private cloud. Both of these examples follow the best practice and design considerations previously discussed. Table 22 shows an example of a storage layout dedicated for SQL Server database pools. The configuration can support around 700 host IOPS. Note This is only an example for both the infrastructure pool and the SQL Server pools. The disk number used in the example for the virtual infrastructure can be variable. Table 22. Storage layout example on VNXe SQL Server storage pool name RAID type Disk type Disk capacity SQL user database data pool RAID 5 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 10 No. of disks SQL user database log and tempdb pool RAID 1/0 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 6 56

57 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices Figure 6 shows an example of the storage layout for the SQL Server on the VNXe series. Figure 6. Storage layout example: SQL Server for the VNXe series Table 23 shows an example of storage pools for SQL Server on VNX, in addition to the VSPEX private cloud pool. The configuration can support around 2,000 host IOPS. Table 23. Storage layout example on VNX Storage pool name RAID type Disk type Disk capacity No. of disks SQL user database data pool RAID 5 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 5 SQL user database log and tempdb pool RAID 1/0 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 4 FAST Cache RAID 1 Flash disks 100 GB 2 Figure 7 shows an example of the storage layout for the SQL Server on the VNX series with the virtual machine infrastructure. 57

58 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices Figure 7. Storage layout example: SQL Server for VNX series Note These are only two examples of a storage layout. To plan and design your own storage layouts for SQL Server over a VSPEX stack, follow the guidance in the VSPEX Sizing Tool and the best practices in the Storage layout and design considerations section. 58

59 Virtualization design considerations Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices Overview of virtualization design considerations Design best practices SQL Server 2012 is fully supported when you deploy it in a virtual environment that is supported by Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware vsphere. The following sections describe the best practices and design considerations for SQL Server 2012 virtualization. In this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server, EMC recommends that you consider the best practices described here for virtualization design. Table 24 lists the recommended RAM for computers to run SQL Server, based on the combined size of SQL Server user databases. Table 24. Recommended RAM for SQL Server Combined size of SQL Server user databases Up to 50 GB RAM recommended for computers running SQL Server 8 GB 50 GB to 250 GB 16 GB 250 GB to 500 GB 32 GB Database size larger than 500 GB Contact EMC for validation Each SQL Server has its own data stores and virtual disks for its operating system. In VMware virtualized environments, the SQL Server OS/boot LUNs use a VMDK on their own data store, and in Hyper-V virtualized environments, the SQL Server OS/boot LUNs use a VHDX on their own data store. All database LUNs use VMDK in VMware or VHDX in Hyper-V. Because SQL Server 2012 can automatically detect NUMA, and the SQL Server processor and memory allocation can be optimized for NUMA, this solution implemented the following design best practices: Keep the number of physical cores and vcpus in a 1:1 ratio. Ensure that there are no overcommitted CPUs. Consider the NUMA node size when sizing virtual machines. To avoid accessing remote memory in a NUMA-aware environment, size a SQL virtual machine's memory so it is less than the amount available per NUMA node. Fully reserve the RAM for the SQL Server virtual machines. In VMware, enable the VMware HA, DRS, and vmotion functions. If you select vsphere as your hypervisor, enable the VMware HA, DRS, and vmotion functions on the ESXi servers to provide basic availability and scalability for multiple SQL Server deployments. The VMware DRS function can automatically balance the workload between the hosts by using the vmotion function. When SQL Server workloads increase, DRS automatically moves a bottlenecked virtual machine to another host with more available resources, without downtime. 59

60 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices When you want to enable DRS function, ensure that the automatic rebalancing is not too aggressive as this can cause performance issues with constant VMotion. After you enable the DRS function, consider using DRS affinity and anti-affinity rules. EMC recommends that you use DRS affinity and anti-affinity rules for specific groups of virtual machines (for example, a group of web servers) that should never reside on the same host. DRS also enables the grouping of virtual machines by a common name and restricting their execution to a specific subset of hosts. For detailed steps on how to configure DRS, refer to the Implementation Guides for SQL Server section. In Hyper-V, enable the Hyper-V high availability and Live Migration functions. Hyper-V with System Center and integrating with System Center Operations Manager can provide the monitoring of resource utilization of the Hyper-V hosts and virtual machines, and can automatically balance resource utilization by using Live Migration to move VMs with no downtime. When you want to enable the DRS function, ensure that the automatic rebalancing is not too aggressive as this can cause performance issues with constant Live Migration. Monitor the performance of your whole VSPEX Proven infrastructure regularly. Monitoring performance not only happens at the virtual machine level, but also at the hypervisor level. For example, when the hypervisor is ESXi, you can use performance monitoring inside the SQL Server virtual machine to ensure virtual machine or SQL Server performance. Meanwhile, at the hypervisor level, you can use esxtop to monitor host performance. For detailed information on the performance monitoring tool, refer to the Implementation Guides for SQL Server section. Application design considerations Overview of application design considerations Design best practices Design considerations for SQL Server 2012 involve many aspects. The best practice and design considerations in this section provide guidelines for the most common and important ones to follow. In this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server, EMC recommends that you consider the following best practices for the SQL Server 2012 design. SQL Server instance settings Note The Lock Pages in Memory privilege is granted to the SQL Server startup account. This privilege is designed to prevent the process working set (committed memory) from being paged out or trimmed by the operating system. For more information, refer to the Microsoft Support article How to enable the "locked pages" feature in SQL Server After enabling the Lock Pages in Memory privilege, set the maximum server memory of the SQL Server instance to prevent the instance from reserving all memory from OS. 60

61 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices The Enable Instant File Initialization privilege is granted to achieve better performance for database operations such as CREATE DATABASE, ALTER DATABASE, RESTORE, and AUTOGROW. It can significantly shorten the time to create or expand a datafile. For more information, refer to the Microsoft Technet topic Database File Initialization. SQL Server database settings Consider the following best practices for user databases settings: Use multiple datafiles for large databases. Use the full recovery model to enable administrators to back up the transaction logs incrementally. This model enables recovery of the SQL Server database from a specific point in time from the log backup, even if the datafiles of the content databases are corrupt. EMC recommends that you take log backups regularly for the full recovery model. In this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, EMC recommends that you use the following setting s for tempdb: Pre-allocate space and add a single datafile per LUN. Ensure that all files are of the same size. Assign the temp log files to one of the LUNs dedicated to log files. Enable the autogrow option. Set the database autogrow value to approximately 10 percent of the initial file size as a reasonable starting point. EMC recommends that you use the following configuration for the transaction logs: Create a single transaction log file per database on one of the LUNs assigned to the transaction log space. Spread log files for different databases across available LUNs or use multiple log files for log growth as required. Enable the autogrow option for log files. For detailed configuration steps, refer to the Implementation Guides for SQL Server section. SQL Server 2012 licensing consideration In this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SQL Server, EMC recommends that you consider the SQL Server licensing models to achieve better cost savings. With SQL Server 2012, customers have various licensing options, including the Server+CAL licensing model, which provides low-cost access to incremental SQL Server deployments, and core-based licensing, a new computing-power-based license model, which shifted from physical processors to cores. Under the core-based licensing model, customers count the total number of physical cores for each processor in the server, and multiply the number of cores by an appropriate core factor to determine the number of licenses required for each processor. 61

62 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices The core-based licensing model is appropriate when: Deploying the SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition. Implementing centralized deployments that span a large number of direct and/or indirect users/devices. The total licensing costs are lower than that of using the Server+CAL licensing model. Under the Server+CAL licensing model, EMC customers purchase a server license for each server and a client access license (CAL) for each device and/or user-accessing SQL Server. The Server+CAL licensing model is appropriate when: Deploying the SQL Server 2012 Business Intelligence Edition. Deploying the SQL Server Standard Edition in scenarios where you can easily count users/devices and the total licensing costs are lower than that of using the core-based licensing model. Planning to scale out use of SQL Server by adding new servers over time. In this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, to license the virtualized SQL Server, customers can choose either to license individual virtual machines or, for maximum virtualization in a highly virtualized private cloud, to license the entire physical server with Enterprise Edition core licenses. To choose an appropriate licensing model for SQL Server 2012 in various environments, refer to the SQL Server 2012 Licensing Quick Reference Guide on the Microsoft website. 62

63 Backup and recovery design considerations Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices Considerations The Avamar plug-ins support backup and recovery of the SQL Server, ranging from the entire instance or databases to various supported in-place or out-of-place recoveries. Additional flexibility includes support for file group recoveries in SQL Server The remaining components in the SQL Server environment should be backed up with the Avamar Client for Windows. Using both clients respective coverage enables recovery for not only the SQL Server instances and databases, but also the objects on the related SQL servers and their host operating systems. If VMware vsphere is being protected by Avamar virtual machine image protection, users can restore those virtual machines without installing an Avamar client on those hosts. Users need to restore those hosts from SQL Server backups if they have instances or databases. For disaster-level recovery, virtual machine image recovery enables OS-level recovery. The SQL Server-level recovery is applied after those resources are restored. The implementation of vsphere image-level protection is beyond the scope of this guide, but is a viable option to restore base operating systems. Note Using EMC Data Domain as the backup target for Avamar is also a support option. The Avamar client and plug-ins are installed in the same way as when using Avamar as the backup target. If you use Data Domain, the only difference is a checkbox in the dataset definition. This is described in the implementation steps. Additionally, both Avamar and Data Domain support multiple streams. Minimum backup software and hardware requirements Hardware requirements Table 25 lists the hardware requirements. Table 25. Hardware requirements for backup Requirement Memory (RAM) File system Network Minimum 512 MB (2 GB recommended) New Technology File System (NTFS) 2 GB permanent hard drive space for Avamar Windows client and SQL agent software installation. The Avamar Plug-in for SQL Server also requires an additional 12 MB of permanent hard drive space for each 64 MB of physical RAM. This space is used for local cache files. Note You must convert FAT 16 and 32 systems to NTFS 10BaseT minimum; 100BaseT or higher recommended, configured with latest drivers for the platform Avamar plug-in for SQL: Software requirements The Avamar Plug-in for SQL places additional demands on computer hardware and resources beyond the base requirements for the Avamar plug-in for Windows. The following topics describe the requirements for the Avamar plug-in for SQL Server. 63

64 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices Database size Although SQL Server supports databases up to 524,272 TB in size, this translates to a practical limit of the maximum Avamar grid size. Even with a considerable deduplication factor, this Avamar grid capacity ceiling is well below SQL s maximum. In turn, Avamar s maximum grid size is dependent on the number and type of storage nodes plus the commonality factor of all the data types on that grid and their respective retention periods. The maximum database sizes recommended by Microsoft for rapid backup and recovery range from 200 GB for SQL Server 2008 to 300 GB for SQL Server For more information about sizing databases for best performance, refer to the Microsoft TechNet articles Capacity Management for SQL Server 2012 and Capacity Management for SQL Server Multistreaming Avamar configuration requirements When you specify multistreaming options for a backup, specify a maximum of one backup stream for each disk in the backup set. For example: If you back up two databases with each database on its own disk, you can specify a maximum of two streams. If you back up two databases with each database and its logs residing on two additional disks (for a total of four disks), you can specify a maximum of four streams. The general best practice is to match the number of disks to a maximum number of supported streams (six). Database requirements The Avamar plug-in for SQL supports the last two versions of SQL Server, namely SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server This is inclusive of service packs. Notes SQL Server 2012 Always On/Availability Group (AO/AG): Native support for this mode was introduced in Avamar 6.1. Although Avamar has a policy of supporting the last two versions of an application for functionality, there is a discrete functionality gap worth noting here. In this instance, you need to deploy the Avamar 6.1 Server first, and then use the Avamar 6.1 client to use the SQL Server 2012 AO/AG functionality. Avamar -2 Exception: This functionality is an exception to the +/-2 client version interoperability. The gaps are called out in the SQL Release Notes and the Compatibility Matrix. Specific +/-2 recovery scenarios are covered in this guide, including the co-existence of the Avamar 6.0 and 6.1 SQL plug-in catalogs and various upgrade scenarios. These permutations are beyond the scope of this. For more information about using the Avamar plug-in for SQL Server 2012 Always On Availability Group (AO/AG) database backups, refer to Avamar Plug-in for SQL Server P/N

65 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices.NET 4.0 Dependency: Avamar 6.1 requires.net 4.0 to use the Avamar 6.1 client plug-ins. For the v6.1 SQL plug-in,.net 4.0 supports the underlying APIs that are required for browsing the SQL environment, for example, enumerating the instances and databases. Additionally, for the SQL plugin, the new.net 4.0 version was driven by the need to support SQL 2012 in Avamar 6.1. Due to Microsoft constraints, Avamar cannot support running the v6.1 SQL plug-in on a SQL client without the.net 4.0 framework..net 4.0 Reboot Requirement: The requirement to reboot when installing.net 4.0 or upgrading to.net 4.0 is highly dependent upon which packages are already installed, including the operating system itself and a number of other variables that can force a reboot. These other variables include files in use, and so on. All the combinations to determine a reboot are very difficult to quality and then verify..net 4.0 Additional Background: For further information, Microsoft details.net 4.0 upgrade procedures very well. There is also a flag available for use, /norestart, which signals the installer not to force a reboot after the installation. This allows the customer to reboot when it is convenient for them (late at night, during a scheduled maintenance, and so on)..net 4.0 Best Practices: It is recommended that you run the.net 4.0 installer before attempting to upgrade Avamar Client or SQL packages, which enables customer to handle the reboot case asynchronously with worst case where a reboot is required. After.NET 4.0 is installed, and the system is rebooted (if required), the SQL plug-in and the Avamar Client can be upgraded since this mandated prerequisite will have been addressed. User/System Databases: You can use the Avamar plug-in for SQL Server to back up all user databases in the environment, including system databases. The recovery of system databases versus their user database counterparts has a number of scenarios varying from which system database requires recovery first to how corrupt that system database is. These restore considerations are beyond the scope of this document, but are thoroughly documented for each version, that is, SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server Do not use a 2008 procedure for 2012 or a 2012 procedure for 2008 each procedure is version-specific with a different dependency order for system dbase restore among model, master, msdb, and so on. Recovery Models: The Avamar plug-in for SQL supports a range of recovery models ranging from the Simple Recovery Model for system databases and user databases where no log truncation is necessary. For the balance, namely very large databases, a Full Recovery Model is supported that leverages Microsoft s Virtual Device Interface (VDI) streams to truncate logs to their actual log sequence number (LSN). Additional temporal truncations required for point-in-time recoveries are also supported. Required account privileges You must have domain-level administrator access for account privileges. Typically, the Administrator account you used when installing and configuring the SQL Server is also a member of the Administrators group on each server. 65

66 Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations And Best Practices If you use a different administrator account other than the one you used to install SQL Server, you must do both of the following: Add the SQL Server Administrator account to the Domain Administrators group. Assign the Log on as a service right to the SQL Server Administrator account on each server that runs any of the SQL Server services. This setting is specified in Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment > Log on as a service. Avamar Backup Agent service runs as LocalSystem The Avamar Backup Agent service must be running as LocalSystem on all machines. Services and writers Table 26 lists the services and writers required for Avamar plug-in for SQL Server plug-in operations. Each of these is located on the same server. This list may be useful for troubleshooting backup or recovery failures. Table 26. Services and writers used by Avamar plug-in for SQL Server Microsoft application Service or writer name SQL Server SQLServer(MSSQLSERVER) SQLServerVSSWriter(SQLWriter) 66

67 Chapter 6 Solution Verification Methodologies This chapter presents the following topics: Baseline hardware verification methodology Application verification methodology Backup and recovery verification methodology

68 Chapter 6: Solution Verification Methodologies Baseline hardware verification methodology Overview The purpose of this chapter is to provide the verification methodologies from hardware, application, and backup and recovery aspects of the solution. Through the verification methodologies, you can ensure that the configuration supports the availability and performance requirements. Hardware consists of the computer's physical resources such as processors, memory, and storage. Hardware also includes physical network components such as network interface cards (NICs), cables, switches, routers, and hardware load balancers. You can avoid many performance and capacity issues by using the correct hardware for the VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server solution. Conversely, a single misapplication of a hardware resource, such as insufficient memory on a server, can affect performance of the SQL Server. For detailed steps on verifying the redundancy of the solution components, refer to the Implementation Guides for SQL Server section. Application verification methodology After you verify the hardware and redundancy of the solution components, the next stage is SQL Server application testing and optimization, which is also a critical step of the VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server solution. Test the new VSPEX Proven Infrastructure before deploying it to production to ensure the architectures you designed achieve the required performance and capacity targets. This enables you to identify and optimize potential bottlenecks before they impact users in a live deployment. Before you start verifying your SQL Server performance on the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, make sure you have deployed SQL Server 2012 in your VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, based on the Implementation Guides for SQL Server. Table 27 describes the high-level steps to complete before you put the SQL Server environment into production. Table 27. High-level steps for application verification Step Description Reference 1 Understand the key metrics for your SQL Server environment to achieve the performance and capacity that meet your business requirements. Understanding key metrics 2 Use the VSPEX Sizing Tool for SQL Server to determine the architecture and resources of your VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. 3 Design and build the SQL Server solution on VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. EMC VSPEX website Implementation Guides for SQL Server 68

69 Chapter 6: Solution Verification Methodologies Step Description Reference 4 Run the tests, analyze the results, and optimize your VSPEX architecture. Running tests, analyzing results, and optimization Understanding key metrics In addition to the test scenario, it is important to know the goal of the SQL Server testing. This makes it easier to decide which metrics to capture and what thresholds must be met for each metric when running the SQL Server validation tests. To validate the VSPEX for virtualized SQL Server solution, we considered the key metrics as shown in Table 28. Table 28. Key metrics Metrics Thresholds Average CPU utilization (%) Less than 70% The average disk latency Less than 15 milliseconds The VSPEX Sizing Tool helps you to understand the basic metrics and thresholds to meet your customer s business requirement. Running tests, analyzing results, and optimization After the database environment is created, it is very important to run test applications to verify the performance of SQL Server In this solution, we ran the tests using a TPC-E-like application to validate the SQL Server performance. The TPC-E-like application is the server performance benchmark, which emulates the brokerage market transactions flow between market, customer, and broker. The benchmark cannot represent the real application in the customer environment. In the real customer environment, we highly recommend that customers: Evaluate the TPC-E-like workload and I/O pattern. If it is acceptable and the real workload is similar, you can use the test results as a reference. However, customers need to consider the potential risks. Build a test environment first, and then copy and restore the production database to test the real workload themselves and to verify the SQL Server performance, if the real application workload types are different from what we validated in our test environment. For detailed configuration information, refer to the Implementation Guides for SQL Server section. Backup and recovery verification methodology Overview of backup and recovery implementation Avamar solves the challenges associated with traditional backup, enabling fast, reliable backup and recovery for remote offices, data center LANs, and Exchange environments. Avamar is a backup and recovery software that uses patented global data deduplication technology to identify redundant sub-file data segments at the source, reducing daily backup data up to 500 times before it is transferred across the network and stored to disks. This enables companies to perform daily full backups even across congested networks and limited WAN links. 69

70 Chapter 6: Solution Verification Methodologies This guide is not intended to replace the core documentation for planning, implementation, or a step-by-step installation. You can refer to this guide as a best practice for those activities. Deploying backup software Installing the Avamar Client for Windows For installation instructions, the EMC Avamar 6.1 for SQL Server User Guide referenced earlier provides step-by-step considerations for an initial deployment. This guide also covers the following factors: Enabling user access controls Assigning user rights Where to obtain the client installer packages The purpose of this guide is to point out best practices where applicable and not replace a step-by-step installation document. Creating a dataset The Avamar dataset is the core part of a policy definition. The dataset controls what is backed up and where the backups are to be stored (Avamar or Data Domain). In this backup storage context, users select either Avamar or Data Domain to store the SQL instance or database data. Currently, EMC does not provide mixed support for both Avamar and Data Domain. To capture operating system state and mission-critical file system data and metadata, use the Avamar Windows client (file system) plug-in for System-State-level protection. Users can include these plug-in or dataset elements in the same dataset where the SQL plug-in is defined or define and manage the plug-ins or dataset elements using a separate dataset. Note For the Windows file system dataset, add an exclude wildcard for database and log file types. For details regarding the use of wildcards, refer to the Avamar Administration Guide. To create a dataset for scheduled backups, select Tools > Manage Datasets in Avamar Administrator. The Manage All Datasets window appears, as shown in Figure 8. For step-by-step instructions, refer to the EMC Avamar 6.1 for SQL Server User Guide. 70

71 Chapter 6: Solution Verification Methodologies Figure 8. Manage All Datasets window To store the backups for this dataset on a Data Domain system instead of the Avamar server (the default), select Store backup on the Data Domain system and then select Store backup on Data Domain system from the list as shown in the middle of Figure 9. The Data Domain target is assumed to have already been added to the Avamar system as part of the core installation for reference in this document. 71

72 Chapter 6: Solution Verification Methodologies Figure 9. New Dataset window Options Creating a group Figure 10 shows the New Group window. For step-by-step instructions, refer to the EMC Avamar SQL Server Guide. 72

73 Chapter 6: Solution Verification Methodologies Figure 10. New Group window The Group policy encompasses all elements of a backup, including the dataset, schedule, retention policy, and the clients that are included in this policy. This group policy owns and controls all of these elements. For the SQL Server context, add the SQL instances or databases requiring data protection. Enabling scheduled backups In Avamar Administrator, click the Policy launcher button. The Policy window opens, as shown in Figure 11. Figure 11. Avamar Administrator Group backup Complete the following high-level steps to ensure that the group is enabled for scheduled backups: 1. Select Groups under Policy Management. 73

74 Chapter 6: Solution Verification Methodologies 2. Select the group that you created previously as detailed in the Creating a group section. 3. Select Actions > Group > Disable Group. This clears Disable Group on the Actions > Group menu. A confirmation message appears. 4. Click Yes to enable this group. 5. To launch the backup immediately, right click the policy name and select Backup Now. A successful backup of SQL Server is shown in Figure 12. In this example, a Group Backup has been successfully executed. Figure 12. Avamar Group backup success Restoring data To restore data in a SQL Server environment using the Avamar plug-in for SQL, refer to the restore details in Chapter 4 in the EMC Avamar 6.1 for SQL Server User Guide. The User Guide covers all of the supported recovery models, including the following: Simple recovery model: No transaction log management required Avamar supports the mixing of simple and full recovery models with the ability to skip or promote simple recoveries, thereby avoiding errors or warnings that typically occur when mixing both recovery models Full recovery model: Transaction log truncation, including point-in-time recoveries Avamar s support for VDI leverages SQL Server s LSN wherein every record is uniquely identified to provide a temporal order for each transaction File group recoveries: Avamar 6.1 automatically backs up all secondary databases(file groups) 74