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