The document discusses the benefits of using flash storage for SQL Server performance and high availability, emphasizing its superiority over traditional spinning disks. It outlines various deployment models, including hybrid and all-flash arrays, and their impact on performance, cost efficiency, and high availability. Case studies of organizations like BYU-Hawaii and Mizuno USA illustrate significant improvements in operational efficiency and reduced costs through the adoption of Tegile's flash storage solutions.

1. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
Architectural Designs
Driving SQL Server Performance
& High Availability
Sumeet Bansal
Senior Solutions Architect, Databases, Tegile

2. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
2©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
What matters most to a DBA?
Performance High Availability Cost Reduction

3. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
Performance

4. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
4©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
Improving Performance
Then:
Add Disks
Caching
Add Memory
Short Stroking
Add Processors
Buffer Pools
Now: Flash Storage

5. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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Why Flash Storage
“Performance of
traditional spinning
disk has not kept up
with other standard
IT Infrastructure”

6. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
6©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
 Not designed for flash
 Short-term solution
“Bolt-On” Flash Architectures
Software
Tiering
Server ServerServer
SANStorage

7. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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Server-Side Flash as Storage
Server Server Server
 Moved the data file and the log files inside the server
 High Availability Concerns
 Scalability Concerns

8. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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Server-Side Flash as Cache
Server Server Server
 Mainly for read caching
 Limited use cases

9. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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Hyper-Converged Architectures
Server Server Server
Server + Storage Server + Storage Server + Storage Server + Storage
 Inconsistent performance
 Upgrade & refresh challenges
 Licensing Concerns

10. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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Hybrid Arrays
Server Server Server
 Most I/O delivered from cache (DRAM & SSD)
 Very good $/GB & $/IOP
Performance layer
Capacity layer

11. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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All-Flash Arrays
Server Server Server
 Consistent low latency & high IOPS
 Higher $/GB than hybrid systems

12. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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Ways Flash Storage Can Be Deployed
Legacy Approach
 Retrofit legacy arrays with SSDs
 Tiering s/w for passive migration
 Expensive & inefficient
SERVER
Server-Side Flash
 Flash storage in server
 High performance
 VMs in server islands
 No shared storage
 No HA
SERVER
SERVER
SERVER
SERVER
Hyper Converged
 Clustered DAS servers
 SSD & HDD DAS
 Inconsistent performance
 CPU & memory shared
across apps & storage tasks
All-Flash Arrays
 High performance
 Cost prohibitive for all
workloads
Hybrid Arrays
 SSD for perf
 HDD for capacity
 Perf-capacity-cost
balance
Interim Band-Aid Solution Limited Use Cases Limited for VDI For High-Perf Workloads For Most Workloads
Beware of options that only address
a limited number of use cases.
All Flash & Hybrid storage addresses
a broader set of workloads.

13. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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Mapping the Competitive Landscape
Legacy Storage
• Bolt-on flash
• Expensive & inefficient
Hybrid Storage
• Intelligent use of flash
storage
• Balance performance & cost
• Broad set of workloads
2
All-Flash Arrays
• Low latency applications
• Very high IOPS workloads
• Subset of workloads
Converged Systems
• Combined servers & storage
• Scale-out architecture
• Inconsistent performance
• Branch office solution
Server-Side Flash
• Extreme IOPS workloads
• Expensive
• Niche solution

14. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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Flash enabling adoption of Virtualization
Pre-Flash Architectures Post-Flash Architectures
Disk-Based Flash-Driven
 Protocols/features evolved over time
 Pre-virtualization workloads
 Built to address IOPS & latency challenges
 Virtualization & analytics workloads

15. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
15©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
Not All Flash-Based Arrays Are Created Equal
 Periodic data migration across tiers
 Policy-based or ad-hoc migration
 Admin mediated
 Coarse level of granularity for migration
Legacy “Bolt-on” Tiered Storage Next-Generation Flash Storage
Intelligent Caching
 Real-time
 Fine-grained
Performance
Layer
Capacity
Layer
Implementation Differences
Type of SSD  Most arrays use lower-end cMLC – endurance concerns
Caching
 Most arrays use flash only for caching reads
 Optimizing metadata access is important
Data Reduction
 Some arrays only provide compression – no dedupe
 Some arrays only dedupe data in SSDs, not HDDs

16. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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What Type of Flash Is Best?
All-Flash or Hybrid?
 All-flash sacrifices capacity for extreme
performance
 Hybrid offers flash performance plus
low-cost capacity of HDD
 In both configurations, capacity can be
stretched with compression and
deduplication

17. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
High Availability

18. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
18©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
Achieving High Availability
Then:
Database
Mirroring
Failover
Clustering
Log Shipping
Backups /
Restores
Always-On,
High-Availability
Groups
Now: Application-Consistent Snapshots

19. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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High Availability
Out of Region
Remote Replication
SQL DB & Server
Clones
Instant Recovery
from Snapshots
Time Efficiency Capacity Efficiency Cross-Site Efficiency

20. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
Cost Reduction

21. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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IT Trends
As always…
We must do more
with less.

22. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
22©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
Cost-Efficiency with Tegile
Server Hardware Costs
 Increase Hardware Utilization
 Reduce Memory Requirements
SQL Server Licensing and Software Assurance Costs
 Increase Transactions per Server
 Reduce IO Wait times
 Save by using SQL Server Standard Edition + IntelliFlash™ Storage Features
Storage Costs
 Reduce data with IntelliFlash™ deduplication and compression
 Increase Utilization with All-Flash and Hybrid Arrays (or Pools)
 Save by protecting All-Flash storage with Hybrid

23. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
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30% CPU Utilization
Server 1 Server 2 Server 3 Server 4
Traditional Disk Array
Reduce Server Hardware Costs
60%+ CPU Utilization
Server 1 Server 2
Tegile IntelliFlash™ Array
Dramatically Reduce
Server Overhead
costs
Dramatically Reduce
Software Licensing
Costs

24. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
24©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
 Software License Cost (perpetual) =
 Based on number of CPUs
 ~$23K per CPU
 $47K for 2x CPUs per Server
 Software Assurance (aka Support Cost) = 20%
per year
SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition
 Software License Cost (perpetual)
 Based on the number of CPU Cores
 $14,256 per Core (sold as 2-core packs)
 E5-2690v2 CPUs have 10 Cores
 ~$143K for 2x CPUs per Server
 Software Assurance (aka Support Cost) = 20%
per year
Upgrading to SQL Server 2014 will add ~$100K of License Cost and increase
Support Cost by $100K over 5-years
SQL Server Upgrades are Expensive

25. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
25©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
30% CPU Utilization 60%+ CPU Utilization
Server 1 Server 2 Server 3 Server 4 Server 1 Server 2
Tegile IntelliFlash™ Array
Traditional Disk Array
4x Server Costs
4x SQL Server Licensing
4x SQL SA for 3 yrs
+$1M + High Array Cost
Reduce Upgrade Costs with Flash
Over $500K in savings!
2x Server Costs
2x SQL Server Licensing
2x SQL SA for 3 yrs
~$500k + Low Array Cost
VS

26. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
26©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
Double down on Savings…
 Use SQL Server Standard License ($3,700 per Core)
 Use Compression and Dedupe to Reduce cost of Flash
 Use Hybrid for DR site to make it cost effective

27. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
27©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
Get Enterprise Features with Standard Edition License
SQL Server Standard Edition Tegile Solution
Memory Limited to 128GB 192GB/Controller
Database Mirroring Synchronous Only Asynchronous Replication
Snapshots No Yes
High Availability Groups No Application Consistent Snapshots
Data Compression No Yes
 Reduce Licensing costs by 1/5th
 Get Functionality at the Storage Level

28. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
Real-Life Examples

29. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
29©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
BYU – Hawaii: Their IT Challenges
 99% virtualized environment
 Slow performance
 Retrieving student records from Oracle took too long
 Webpage load times, video services, email also slow
 University expects to expand enrollment from 3,000 to 5,000
students in the next 3-5 years
 Wanted to the flexibility to use both Fibre Channel and NFS
 Limited IT staff

30. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
30©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
More of the Same?
 Retrofitting old disk-based architectures with flash is
inefficient
 Adding spindles for performance wasn’t sustainable
 Costs 5-7x what newer, more innovative solutions
charge for same performance
 In higher education, money is tight!

31. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
31©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
BYU – Hawaii: Topology
WWWVideo ServicesEmailStudent Records
2 x Tegile Hybrid Arrays (2U each)
1 x Tegile Hybrid Array (3U)
WAN
Off-Island Replication
4 days of
snapshots for
DR
ERP Active Directory

32. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
32©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
BYU – Hawaii: The Results of Flash
 Replaced IBM storage TB for TB
 Gained 100 - 120 TBs of useable disk space
 25 - 40x improvement in throughput for critical applications
 Improved end-user experience. They noticed!
 Moved from NFS-mounted drives to virtual mounted drives
 Can now load-balance across blades with no problems
 Due to capacity and cost savings, the university was able
to purchase 3rd array for DR

33. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
33©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
Mizuno USA: Their IT Challenges
 Aging SAN infrastructure
 Poor SQL Server performance had become an issue (>15ms storage latency)
 Wasn’t efficient and wouldn’t scale to meet future demand
 Data Growth
 Array-based snapshots and replication were not space-efficient
 Outdated Backup & Recovery
 Its offsite backup solution was slow and difficult to manage
 Full backup jobs were running for longer than an entire weekend
 Cost was too high to implement an effective DR strategy

34. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
34©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
Mizuno USA: Topology
Backup Server
Primary DC #1
(32TB Capacity)
Primary DC #2
(32TB Capacity)
Local Backups
(Data is compressed/deduped globally by Tegile)
Snapshots are space-efficient and VM-aware
Replication is WAN-optimized
Snapshots are replicated across WAN
Disaster Recovery

35. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
35©Copyright 2015 Tegile Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Company Confidential
Mizuno USA: The Results of Flash
 Performance
 No longer sees performance issues with business-critical apps and DBs (300%
improvement in storage latency)
 Backup Windows
 Monthly fulls now take 1/4 the time
 Nightly incrementals take ~5 min
 Storage Savings
 DC #1 is using ~4TB of 32TB
 DC #2 is using ~14TB of 32TB for backups
 Disaster Recovery
 Takes snapshots from 1-4 times a day
 Maintains 3 days of snapshots on one set of volumes

36. One Flash Platform.
ANY Workload.
Thank You
sumeet@tegile.com