The document outlines a presentation on SQL Server virtualization from the TechDays 2015 event, highlighting the advantages and best practices of virtualizing databases. It covers topics such as performance optimization, resource management, troubleshooting methods, and includes a case study comparing physical and virtual server performance. Recommendations for effective virtualization strategies and monitoring KPIs are also provided.

1. AMBIENT INTELLIGENCE
tech days•
2015
#mstechdays techdays.microsoft.fr

2. select * from techdays2015.speaker_principals
Christophe LAPORTE
Consultant Formateur Indépendant
Blog http://conseilit.wordpress.com/
Twitter @Conseilit
Email christophe_laporte@hotmail.fr
Nadia BEN EL KADI
SQL Server Team
Microsoft France
Blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/

3. tech.days 2015#mstechdaysSESSION
Agenda – SQL Server & la virtualisation
 Introduction
 Why virtualizing
 Advantages of virtualization
 Demo / Deployement
 Virtualization Support rules & Best Practices
 Virtualization HA scenarios
 Troubleshooting & Monitoring & Good to know
 Case Study
 Virtualization & cloud : A sample usage scenario
 Conclusion

4. tech.days 2015#mstechdaysSESSION
Introduction
DatabasesInstancesVirtual
Machines
Sales_1
Marketing_1
Online_Sales
ERP_10
ERP_10
DB_1
DB_2
DB_3
Consolidate_1
 Consolidation
 Standardize to fewer hardware
 Reduce space, power
 Improve Hardware Utilization
 Improve Management Efficiency
 Lowered cost and complexity

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Pourquoi virtualiser ?
• Historiquement
• Consolidation
• Maintenance de matériel obsolète
• Peu adapté à de lourdes charges de travail (OLTP / DWH)
• Actuellement
• Le matériel à évolué
• CPU / RAM / Réseau (10Gb, RDMA)
• Disques (SAN Full Flash / SSD, Cartes Flash)
• Les hyperviseurs ont aussi évolué
• Gestion des ressources
• Performance
• Les serveurs bases de données peuvent être candidat à la
virtualisation

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Avantages de la virtualisation
• Faible adhérence au matériel
• Migrations facilitées
• Mise à jour hyperviseur
• Flexibilité
• Modification (à chaud) de la configuration d’une VM
• Redimensionnement à chaud des VHDX
• Limitation de la bande passant disque si nécessaire
• Affectation de ressources à l’instant T et non pas en fonction de la durée de vie du
projet
• Nombre de CPU
• Mémoire
• Dépannage
• Clonage à chaud (ou export depuis un checkpoint) d’une VM

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SQL Server virtualization

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SQL Server support for virtualization
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956893/en-us

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SQL Server

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HOST
 Better when the host supports SLAT (Second Level Address Translation) and NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access)
Most modern servers provide these features
 Take Care of the overcommitting : (VP:LP) ratio
 Antivirus (extensions VHD/VHDX/AVHD/AVHDX)
 Let enough Memory for the HOST for the VMs management
 Monitor Memory usage to prevent performance issues

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Guest VM
Maximizing GUEST CPU
 Identify and categorize virtual machines based on their loads and allocate #Vcpu processors accordingly.
Maximizing GUEST Memory
 Allocate a reasonable amount of memory to the virtual machines running SQL Server workloads so that they can handle
the expected loads (at peak and off-peak times)
 If using Dynamic memory to provide better stability to a virtual machine workload, grant Lock Pages in Memory user rights to the
SQL Server service account.

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 Pass-through Disk
 VHD (Virtual Hard Disk)
 Fixed Size VHD : Best performance
 Dynamic VHD : Expand on demand
 Hyper-V 2012 has the new VHDX format
 Hyper-V 2012 has Virtual Fiber Channel to connect directly to FC storage from within a virtual machine.
Storage

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Reduce IO with Instant File Initialization
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Create 100 GB database Restore 100 GB database
Time(minutes)
Impact of Instant File Initialization
Without Instant File Initialization With Instant File Initialization

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Reduce IO with Data Compression
400000
500000
600000
700000
800000
900000
1000000
100000
150000
200000
250000
NONE PAGE
Reads
Time(ms)
Query Performance with Data Compression
CPU Time Elapsed Time
Logical Reads Physical Reads (+RA)
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NONE PAGE
Throughput(BusinessTransactions/sec)
OLTP Throughput
Throughput

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Whitepapers
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=306266
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/1/D/61DDE9B6-AB46-48CA-8380-
D7714C9CB1AB/Best_Practices_for_Virtualizing_and_Managing_SQL_Server_2012.pdf

17. tech.days 2015#mstechdaysSESSION
Comparison : Physical vs Virtual
Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Tested the difference in performance
between the brokerage application running
in a Hyper-V VM & a native physical server
Increased Scale & Performance
The 2 tests showed just a 6% difference
between the brokerage application running
on physical vs. virtual
Download Full Report
The full report is available for public
download here.
0
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1600
Physical Virtual
Transactions/Sec
Hyper-V OLTP Workload Analysis

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Points d’attention
• Diagnostic
• Niveau 1 : hyperviseur (CPU, disque, mémoire)
• Est-ce que le Host est chargé
• Quelle sont les limites du Host
• Hyper-V Processor Counters : best way to get true measure of CPU utilization
• Hyper-V Logical Processor: Total CPU time across entire server
• Hyper-V Virtual Processor: CPU time for each guest virtual processor
• Niveau 2 : Guest OS (CPU, disque, mémoire)
• Est-ce que le Guest est chargé (OS)
• Est-ce que SQL Server est chargé
• Compteurs de performance système / SQL Server
• DMVs / DMFs
• Pensez à ne pas surexploiter le host
• Pas de surexploitation de la mémoire
• Nombre de vCœurs vs nombre de cœurs
• pNUMA vs vNUMA
• Stratégie de sauvegarde

20. tech.days 2015#mstechdaysSESSION
Troubleshooting Common VM Issues
Issue KPIs To Monitor Actions to Consider
CPU at or near 80%
% Processor Time (_Total)
SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD waits
Increase instance size
Identify top consuming queries and tune
Load balance (e.g. move DB to another instance)
Near I/O capacity limits or
IO Latency Increases
Average disk reads per second
Average disk writes per second
Disk reads per second
Disk writes per second
io_virtual_file_stats
PAGEIOLATCH waits
SQL Server: Buffer ManagerPage Life Expectancy
Check Page Life Expectancy counter, for mem
pressure. Increase instance size
Identify which DB and log files have I/O bottleneck
Add more data disks and separate data files if near
IOPS limits per disk
Tune queries to reduce reads and writes
Consider enabling row or page compression
Memory resource pressure
Memory: Available Bytes
Memory: Pages per second
SQL Server: Buffer ManagerPage Life Expectancy
Process: Working Set (for SQL Server)
RESOURCE_SEMAPHORE waits
Check max server memory setting for SQL Server.
Use high memory instance
Identify SQL component (such as, CLR, high
memory grants for app queries, et.), tune
appropriately.

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Characteristics of a cloud
Shared
Infrastruct
ure
Scalable
and Elastic
Usage
Based
Self Service

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Exemple : Catalogue de services
Self Service provisioning

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Conclusion
• Read the white papers
• Control/discover your DB sprawl
• Run MAP toolkit to identify running DBs
• Capacity Planning
• Understand Isolation/security/HA requirements
• Plan and test for IO perf variability
• Identify optimal VM size
• Use Filegroups and multiple data disks for large DBs
• Begin conversion (virtualize)
• Use P2V to keep existing settings
• Create new VM to combine multiple apps
• Identify your KPIs to monitor
• Revisit optimization decisions as workload changes

24. © 2015 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
tech days•
2015
#mstechdays techdays.microsoft.fr