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    

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 TOC, 9780321927750, 7/3/14