Virtualizing SQL Server with VMware: Doing IT Right

by Michael Corey, Jeff Szastak, Michael Webster

Overview

The start-to-finish guide to virtualizing business-critical SQL Server databases on VMware vSphere 5

 

By virtualizing business-critical databases, enterprises can drive far more value from existing IT infrastructure. But squeezing maximum performance out of a virtualized database instance is an art as much as a science. This indispensable start-to-finish guide brings together all the techniques, tips, and insights you need to succeed.

 

Drawing on unsurpassed personal experience, three leading experts share complete best practices for deploying business-critical database servers in virtualized vSphere 5 environments. They cover the entire project lifecycle, bridging technical and communications gaps between SQL Server and VMware professionals that often make database virtualization more difficult than it needs to be.

 

You’ll find specific guidance for architects and administrators responsible for systems, storage, databases, applications, or VMware virtualization. The authors also present detailed, start-to-finish coverage of performance baselining and testing: all you need to make your virtualized databases as fast as they are cost effective. Although this book focuses on SQL, the authors’ proven guidance for enhancing performance can be leveraged by any IT professional virtualizing a demanding Tier 1 application.

 

Coverage includes

 

     •    Business cases for database virtualization: consolidation, Database as a Service (DaaS), efficiency, and “SLAs on steroids”

     •    Using the redundancy inherent in virtualization  to improve availability

     •    Constructing a careful, conservative implementation plan

     •    Balancing disk, CPU, memory, and network for superior performance

     •    Mastering the five key principles of database storage design

     •    Leveraging memory: SQL MAX, page locking, NUMA, reservations, swapping, large memory pages, and more

     •    Ensuring responsiveness by providing a fast, reliable, low-latency network

     •    Supporting advanced AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances and Availability Groups

     •    Baselining physical systems and properly determining resource requirements

     •    Configuring performance tests from beginning  to end

     •    Migrating existing SQL Server databases  onto a vSphere platform

     •    Avoiding traps and pitfalls in virtualizing production databases

     •    Managing and monitoring virtualized database instances and resources

 

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780133430158
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	07/23/2014
Series:	VMware Press Technology
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	512
File size:	27 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Michael Corey (@Michael_Corey) is the President of Ntirety, a division of Hosting. Michael is an experienced entrepreneur and a recognized expert on relational databases, remote database administration, and data warehousing. Microsoft named Michael a SQL

Server MVP, VMware named him a vExpert, and Oracle named him an Oracle Ace. Michael has presented at technical and business conferences from Brazil to Australia. Michael is a past president of the Independent Oracle Users Group; he helped found the Professional Association of SQL Server, is a current board member of the IOUG Cloud SIG, and is actively involved in numerous professional associations and industry user groups. Michael currently sits on the executive committee for the Massachusetts Robert H. Goddard Council for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

 

Jeff Szastak (@Szastak) is currently a Staff Systems Engineer for VMware. Jeff has been with VMware for over six years, holding various roles with VMware during his tenure. These roles have included being a TAM, Systems Engineer Specialist for Business-Critical Applications, Enterprise Healthcare Systems Engineer, and a CTO Ambassador. Jeff is a recognized expert for virtualizing databases and other high I/O applications on the vSphere platform. Jeff is a regular speaker at VMworld, VMware Partner Exchange, VMware User Groups, and has spoken at several SQL PASS events. Jeff holds a Master of Information Assurance degree as well as the distinguished CISSP certification. Jeff has over 13 “lucky” years in IT and is passionate about helping others find a better way to do IT.

 

Michael Webster (@vcdxnz001) is based in Auckland, New Zealand. He is a VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX #66), author of longwhiteclouds. com (a top-15 virtualization blog), and a Top 10 Vmworld Session Speaker for 2013. In addition, he is a Senior Solutions and Performance Engineer for Nutanix, vExpert, MCSE, and NPP. Michael specializes in solution architecture and performance engineering for Unix-to-VMware migrations as well as virtualizing business-critical applications such as SQL, Oracle, SAP, Exchange, Enterprise Java Systems, and monster VMs in software-defined data centers. Michael has more than 20 years experience in the IT industry and 10 years experience deploying VMware solutions in large-scale environments around the globe. He is regularly a presenter at VMware VMworld, VMware vForums, VMware User Groups, and other industry events. In addition to this book, Michael was technical reviewer of VCDX Boot Camp and Virtualizing and Tuning Large-Scale Java Platforms, both published by VMware Press.

Table of Contents

Foreword xvii

Preface xix

About the Authors xxiii

About the Technical Reviewer xxv

Acknowledgments xxvii

Reader Services xxix

1 Virtualization: The New World Order? 1

    Virtualization: The New World Order 1

        Virtualization Turns Servers into Pools of Resources 3

        Living in the New World Order as a SQL Server DBA 3

        A Typical Power Company 6

    Summary 7

2 The Business Case for Virtualizing a Database 9

    Challenge to Reduce Expenses 9

    The Database Administrator (DBA) and Saving Money 10

    Service Level Agreements (SLA) and the DBA 11

        Avoiding the Good Intention BIOS Setting 12

    DBAs’ Top Reasons to Virtualize a Production Database 13

        High Availability and Database Virtualization 14

        Performance and Database Virtualization 16

        Provisioning/DBaaS and Database Virtualization 17

        Hardware Refresh and Database Virtualization 20

    Is Your Database Too Big to Virtualize? 22

    Summary 23

3 Architecting for Performance: The Right Hypervisor 25

    What Is a Hypervisor? 25

        Hypervisor Is Like an Operating System 26

        What Is a Virtual Machine? 28

        Paravirtualization 29

    The Different Hypervisor Types 29

        Type-1 Hypervisor 30

        Type-2 Hypervisor 31

    Paravirtual SCSI Driver (PVSCSI) and VMXNET3 31

    Installation Guidelines for a Virtualized Database 32

        It’s About Me, No One Else But Me 33

        Virtualized Database: It’s About Us, All of Us 34

        DBA Behavior in the Virtual World 34

        Shared Environment Means Access to More If You Need It 35

        Check It Before You Wreck It 36

    Why Full Virtualization Matters 36

        Living a DBA’s Worst Nightmare 37

    Physical World Is a One-to-One Relationship 38

        One-to-One Relationship and Unused Capacity 38

        One to Many: The Virtualized World 40

        The Right Hypervisor 40

    Summary 41

4 Virtualizing SQL Server: Doing IT Right 43

    Doing IT Right 43

    The Implementation Plan 44

        Service-Level Agreements (SLAs), RPOs, and RTOs 45

        Baselining the Existing vSphere Infrastructure 46

        Baselining the Current Database Workload 48

    Bird’s-Eye View: Virtualization Implementation 50

        How a Database Virtualization Implementation Is Different 51

    Summary 55

5 Architecting for Performance: Design 57

    Communication 58

        Mutual Understanding 59

        The Responsibility Domain 60

    Center of Excellence 61

    Deployment Design 63

    SQL Workload Characterization 64

        Putting It Together (or Not) 65

        Reorganization 68

        Tiered Database Offering 70

    Physical Hardware 73

        CPU 74

        Memory 76

        Virtualization Overhead 76

        Swapping, Paging? What’s the Difference? 78

        Large Pages 79

        NUMA 79

        Hyper-Threading Technology 85

        Memory Overcommitment 87

        Reservations 87

        SQL Server: Min/Max 90

        SQL Server: Lock Pages in Memory 92

        Storage 93

        Obtain Storage-Specifi c Metrics 94

        LSI Logic SAS or PVSCSI 94

        Determine Adapter Count and Disk Layout 95

        VMDK versus RDM 96

        VMDK Provisioning Type 96

        Thin Provisioning: vSphere, Array, or Both? 98

        Data Stores and VMDKs 99

        VMDK File Size 100

        Networking 100

    Virtual Network Adapter 100

        Managing Traffi c Types 101

        Back Up the Network 103

    Summary 104

6 Architecting for Performance: Storage 105

    The Five Key Principles of Database Storage Design 106

        Principle 1: Your database is just an extension of your storage 106

        Principle 2: Performance is more than underlying storage devices 107

        Principle 3: Size for performance before capacity 107

        Principle 4: Virtualize, but without compromise 108

        Principle 5: Keep it standardized and simple (KISS) 109

    SQL Server Database and Guest OS Storage Design 109

        SQL Server Database File Layout 110

        Number of Database Files 110

        Size of Database Files 114

        Instant File Initialization 120

        SQL Server File System Layout 122

        SQL Server Buffer Pool Impact on Storage Performance 129

        Updating Database Statistics 130

        Data Compression and Column Storage 132

        Database Availability Design Impacts on Storage Performance 135

        Volume Managers and Storage Spaces 136

    SQL Server Virtual Machine Storage Design 136

        Virtual Machine Hardware Version 137

        Choosing the Right Virtual Storage Controller 138

        Choosing the Right Virtual Disk Device 143

    SQL Virtual Machine Storage Layout 152

    Expanding SQL Virtual Machine Storage 158

    Jumbo VMDK Implications for SQL Server 159

    vSphere Storage Design for Maximum SQL Performance 164

        Number of Data Stores and Data Store Queues 165

        Number of Virtual Disks per Data Store 170

        Storage IO Control–Eliminating the Noisy Neighbor 173

        vSphere Storage Policies and Storage DRS 177

        vSphere Storage Multipathing 184

        vSphere 5.5 Failover Clustering Enhancements 185

        RAID Penalties and Economics 187

    SQL Performance with Server-Side Flash Acceleration 198

        VMware vSphere Flash Read Cache (vFRC) 199

        Fusion-io ioTurbine 201

        PernixData FVP 204

    SQL Server on Hyperconverged Infrastructure 207

    Summary 213

7 Architecting for Performance: Memory 217

    Memory 218

    Memory Trends and the Stack 218

        Database Buffer Pool and Database Pages 219

        Database Indexes 222

    Host Memory and VM Memory 225

        Mixed Workload Environment with Memory Reservations 226

    Transparent Page Sharing 228

        Internet Myth: Disable Memory TPS 229

    Memory Ballooning 230

        Why the Balloon Driver Must Run on Each Individual VM 232

    Memory Reservation 232

        Memory Reservation: VMware HA Strict Admission Control 233

        Memory Reservations and the vswap File 233

    SQL Server Max Server Memory 234

        SQL Server Max Server Memory: Common Misperception 235

        Formula for Confi guring Max Server Memory 236

    Large Pages 237

        What Is a Large Page? 237

        Large Pages Being Broken Down 238

        Lock Pages in Memory 239

        How to Lock Pages in Memory 241

    Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) 241

        vNUMA 243

    Sizing the Individual VMs 244

    More VMs, More Database Instances 244

        Thinking Differently in the Shared-Resource World 246

        SQL Server 2014 In-Memory Built In 246

    Summary 247

8 Architecting for Performance: Network 249

    SQL Server and Guest OS Network Design 250

        Choosing the Best Virtual Network Adapter 250

        Virtual Network Adapter Tuning 252

        Windows Failover Cluster Network Settings 254

        Jumbo Frames 256

        Confi guring Jumbo Frames 259

        Testing Jumbo Frames 262

    VMware vSphere Network Design 264

        Virtual Switches 265

        Number of Physical Network Adapters 267

        Network Teaming and Failover 270

        Network I/O Control 274

        Multi-NIC vMotion 276

        Storage Network and Storage Protocol 279

    Network Virtualization and Network Security 281

    Summary 286

9 Architecting for Availability: Choosing the Right Solution 287

    Determining Availability Requirements 287

    Providing a Menu 288

    SLAs, RPOs, and RTOs 290

    Business Continuity vs. Disaster Recovery 291

        Business Continuity 291

        Disaster Recovery 291

        Disaster Recovery as a Service 292

    vSphere High Availability 294

        Hypervisor Availability Features 294

        vMotion 296

        Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) 297

        Storage vMotion 297

        Storage DRS 297

        Enhanced vMotion X-vMotion 298

        vSphere HA 298

        vSphere App HA 299

        vSphere Data Protection 300

        vSphere Replication 300

        vCenter Site Recovery Manager 301

        VMware vCloud Hybrid Service 302

    Microsoft Windows and SQL Server High Availability 302

        ACID 302

        SQL Server AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instance 304

        SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups 306

    Putting Together Your High Availability Solution 308

    Summary 310

10 How to Baseline Your Physical SQL Server System 311

    What Is a Performance Baseline? 312

        Difference Between Performance Baseline and Benchmarks 315

        Using Your Baseline and Your Benchmark to Validate Performance 318

    Why Should You Take a Performance Baseline? 319

    When Should You Baseline Performance? 320

    What System Components to Baseline 320

        Existing Physical Database Infrastructure 321

        Database Application Performance 323

        Existing or Proposed vSphere Infrastructure 325

    Comparing Baselines of Different Processor Types and Generations 328

        Comparing Different System Processor Types 328

        Comparing Similar System Processor Types Across Generations 330

    Non-Production Workload Infl uences on Performance 331

    Producing a Baseline Performance Report 332

    Performance Traps to Watch Out For 333

        Shared Core Infrastructure Between Production and Non-Production 333

        Invalid Assumptions Leading to Invalid Conclusions 334

        Lack of Background Noise 334

        Failure to Considering Single Compute Unit Performance 335

        Blended Peaks of Multiple Systems 335

        vMotion Slot Sizes of Monster Database Virtual Machines 336

    Summary 337

    Contents

11 Confi guring a Performance Test–From Beginning to End 339

    Introduction 339

        What We Used–Software 341

        What You Will Need–Computer Names and IP Addresses 341

        Additional Items for Consideration 342

        Getting the Lab Up and Running 342

        VMDK File Confi guration 345

        VMDK File Confi guration Inside Guest Operating System 352

        Memory Reservations 355

        Enabling Hot Add Memory and Hot Add CPU 356

        Affi nity and Anti-Affi nity Rules 358

        Validate the Network Connections 359

        Confi guring Windows Failover Clustering 359

        Setting Up the Clusters 362

        Validate Cluster Network Confi guration 368

        Changing Windows Failover Cluster Quorum Mode 369

        Installing SQL Server 2012 374

        Confi guration of SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups 387

        Confi guring the Min/Max Setting for SQL Server 392

        Enabling Jumbo Frames 393

        Creating Multiple tempdb Files 394

        Creating a Test Database 396

        Creating the AlwaysOn Availability Group 399

        Installing and Confi guring Dell DVD Store 406

        Running the Dell DVD Store Load Test 430

    Summary 436

Appendix A Additional Resources 437

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