Migrating your legacy servers running Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 to a new Dell PowerEdge R720 running Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and Microsoft Windows Server 2012 can streamline your infrastructure and deliver savings to your business.
With careful planning, and by following the straightforward process that this guide presents, you can realize the benefits of switching to your new server-and-software solution in no time.
Dell PowerEdge M520 server solution: Energy efficiency and database performancePrincipled Technologies
As energy prices continue to rise, building a power-efficient data center that does not sacrifice performance is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down while keeping application performance high. Choosing servers that pair high performance with new power-efficient technologies helps you do so. In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge M520 with Dell EqualLogic PS-M4110 arrays outperformed the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 server with HP StorageWorks D2200sb arrays by 113.5 percent in OPM. Not only did the Dell PowerEdge M520 blade server solution deliver higher overall performance, it also did so more efficiently, delivering 79.9 percent better database performance/watt than the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 solution.
Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases 2.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014: ...Principled Technologies
As this guide has shown, installing and configuring a Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with SQL Server 2014 powered by the Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases is a straightforward procedure. A key benefit from implementing DAAD 2.0 into your infrastructure is the ability to accelerate workloads without a complete storage area network redesign. This can be ideal for businesses that have snapshot and deduplication features within their software stack or are looking to improve database performance without investing in large storage solutions that may contain features they do not need. Consider DAAD 2.0 for your business—a storage acceleration solution that requires only 4U of rack space and can potentially give your database workloads a boost.
Managing clients with Dell Client Integration Pack 3.0 and Microsoft System C...Principled Technologies
Client management is an important part of any enterprise. Employees have workstations in their offices or notebooks that travel with them around the globe, and efficient updates and remote management capabilities keep an organization’s IT assets ordered and secure. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 can provide a robust, efficient, management system for your IT infrastructure. Selecting clients that not only operate within your IT framework, but that have built-in software to integrate with it seamlessly to make client management tasks even easier is an intelligent strategy for your IT department.
In our tests, we found that Dell client management tools (Dell Client Integration Pack, Dell Client Configuration Toolkit, and Dell OpenManage Client Instrumentation) integrated in a typical SCCM 2012 environment reduced the steps it took to complete client management tasks by as much as 77 percent, and included a number of features that weren’t available with clients from HP and Lenovo.
White Paper Dell Reference Configuration Deploying Microsoft ...webhostingguy
This white paper provides configuration guidelines for deploying SQL Server 2005 on Dell PowerEdge servers with Dell PowerVault storage. It recommends best practices for hardware and software setup, including:
1) Separating TempDB, transaction logs, and database data onto distinct disk groups and virtual disks for improved I/O performance.
2) Configuring server NIC teaming and dual-port SAS controllers for network and storage redundancy.
3) Optimizing the Windows 2003 installation with features like disk partition alignment and file system configuration.
4) Configuring SQL Server 2005 with recommendations for TempDB file placement and sizing.
The document aims to help IT professionals implement a tested Dell configuration for SQL Server 2005
Minimizing licensing costs for enterprise applications is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down. When your applications use per-core licensing, choosing higher-performance servers with fewer cores dramatically reduces your software-related spending. The Dell PowerEdge M820 blade solution with Compellent storage could deliver up to $96,236 in savings as compared to a single HP ProLiant BL680c G7 solution, and if consolidating multiple workloads, could deliver even more savings in licensing costs when running Microsoft SQL Server in a virtualized scenario – all while maintaining or exceeding previous performance levels.
VMmark virtualization performance of Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SANPrincipled Technologies
The storage you use for your virtualization solution can be a significant factor in its performance and effectiveness. Two Dell PowerEdge R720 servers, paired with Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN, ran 10 VMmark tiles for a total of 80 running VMs and achieved a score of 12.05@10 tiles, making it the top score running VMware ESXi 5.5 of the 32-core server configurations. For enterprises that need excellent virtualization performance, this makes Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN a wise investment.
Resource balancing comparison: VMware vSphere 6 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtua...Principled Technologies
Having ample resources to handle user requests is a necessity of modern virtualization solutions. Allocating and distributing those resources evenly, however, is imperative to the success of your business’s virtualized environment. In our tests, after powering on the other two servers in our three-node cluster and adding resource management features, VMware vSphere 6 improved performance by 183 percent over its baseline configuration of one active server and no resource management features. RHEV 3.5, in contrast, delivered only a 79 percent increase over its baseline. As you design your business’s infrastructure and applications, improvements such as those offered by VMware vSphere 6 DRS and Storage DRS can play a critical role by offering your users better application experiences. Optimized and modern resource management provided by VMware DRS can also help to lower your IT purchase and maintenance costs by reducing the number of servers necessary to run your applications.
VMmark 2.5.2 virtualization performance of the Dell Storage SC4020 arrayPrincipled Technologies
The Dell Storage SC4020 array paired with Dell PowerEdge R620 servers supported 30 tiles of the VMmark 2.5.2 virtualization benchmark for a total of 240 running virtual machines. The system achieved a score of 31.35 at 30 tiles, indicating it can handle multiple virtualized applications and hypervisor operations while maintaining strong performance. Testing showed the SC4020 provided consistent I/O operations per second around 43,000 and latency mostly under 4 milliseconds. This performance demonstrates the SC4020 is suitable for increasing virtualized workloads supported by solid-state drives without degrading storage performance.
Dell PowerEdge M520 server solution: Energy efficiency and database performancePrincipled Technologies
As energy prices continue to rise, building a power-efficient data center that does not sacrifice performance is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down while keeping application performance high. Choosing servers that pair high performance with new power-efficient technologies helps you do so. In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge M520 with Dell EqualLogic PS-M4110 arrays outperformed the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 server with HP StorageWorks D2200sb arrays by 113.5 percent in OPM. Not only did the Dell PowerEdge M520 blade server solution deliver higher overall performance, it also did so more efficiently, delivering 79.9 percent better database performance/watt than the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 solution.
Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases 2.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014: ...Principled Technologies
As this guide has shown, installing and configuring a Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with SQL Server 2014 powered by the Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases is a straightforward procedure. A key benefit from implementing DAAD 2.0 into your infrastructure is the ability to accelerate workloads without a complete storage area network redesign. This can be ideal for businesses that have snapshot and deduplication features within their software stack or are looking to improve database performance without investing in large storage solutions that may contain features they do not need. Consider DAAD 2.0 for your business—a storage acceleration solution that requires only 4U of rack space and can potentially give your database workloads a boost.
Managing clients with Dell Client Integration Pack 3.0 and Microsoft System C...Principled Technologies
Client management is an important part of any enterprise. Employees have workstations in their offices or notebooks that travel with them around the globe, and efficient updates and remote management capabilities keep an organization’s IT assets ordered and secure. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 can provide a robust, efficient, management system for your IT infrastructure. Selecting clients that not only operate within your IT framework, but that have built-in software to integrate with it seamlessly to make client management tasks even easier is an intelligent strategy for your IT department.
In our tests, we found that Dell client management tools (Dell Client Integration Pack, Dell Client Configuration Toolkit, and Dell OpenManage Client Instrumentation) integrated in a typical SCCM 2012 environment reduced the steps it took to complete client management tasks by as much as 77 percent, and included a number of features that weren’t available with clients from HP and Lenovo.
White Paper Dell Reference Configuration Deploying Microsoft ...webhostingguy
This white paper provides configuration guidelines for deploying SQL Server 2005 on Dell PowerEdge servers with Dell PowerVault storage. It recommends best practices for hardware and software setup, including:
1) Separating TempDB, transaction logs, and database data onto distinct disk groups and virtual disks for improved I/O performance.
2) Configuring server NIC teaming and dual-port SAS controllers for network and storage redundancy.
3) Optimizing the Windows 2003 installation with features like disk partition alignment and file system configuration.
4) Configuring SQL Server 2005 with recommendations for TempDB file placement and sizing.
The document aims to help IT professionals implement a tested Dell configuration for SQL Server 2005
Minimizing licensing costs for enterprise applications is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down. When your applications use per-core licensing, choosing higher-performance servers with fewer cores dramatically reduces your software-related spending. The Dell PowerEdge M820 blade solution with Compellent storage could deliver up to $96,236 in savings as compared to a single HP ProLiant BL680c G7 solution, and if consolidating multiple workloads, could deliver even more savings in licensing costs when running Microsoft SQL Server in a virtualized scenario – all while maintaining or exceeding previous performance levels.
VMmark virtualization performance of Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SANPrincipled Technologies
The storage you use for your virtualization solution can be a significant factor in its performance and effectiveness. Two Dell PowerEdge R720 servers, paired with Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN, ran 10 VMmark tiles for a total of 80 running VMs and achieved a score of 12.05@10 tiles, making it the top score running VMware ESXi 5.5 of the 32-core server configurations. For enterprises that need excellent virtualization performance, this makes Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN a wise investment.
Resource balancing comparison: VMware vSphere 6 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtua...Principled Technologies
Having ample resources to handle user requests is a necessity of modern virtualization solutions. Allocating and distributing those resources evenly, however, is imperative to the success of your business’s virtualized environment. In our tests, after powering on the other two servers in our three-node cluster and adding resource management features, VMware vSphere 6 improved performance by 183 percent over its baseline configuration of one active server and no resource management features. RHEV 3.5, in contrast, delivered only a 79 percent increase over its baseline. As you design your business’s infrastructure and applications, improvements such as those offered by VMware vSphere 6 DRS and Storage DRS can play a critical role by offering your users better application experiences. Optimized and modern resource management provided by VMware DRS can also help to lower your IT purchase and maintenance costs by reducing the number of servers necessary to run your applications.
VMmark 2.5.2 virtualization performance of the Dell Storage SC4020 arrayPrincipled Technologies
The Dell Storage SC4020 array paired with Dell PowerEdge R620 servers supported 30 tiles of the VMmark 2.5.2 virtualization benchmark for a total of 240 running virtual machines. The system achieved a score of 31.35 at 30 tiles, indicating it can handle multiple virtualized applications and hypervisor operations while maintaining strong performance. Testing showed the SC4020 provided consistent I/O operations per second around 43,000 and latency mostly under 4 milliseconds. This performance demonstrates the SC4020 is suitable for increasing virtualized workloads supported by solid-state drives without degrading storage performance.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - Upgrading to SQL Server 2008 R2 WhitepaperMicrosoft Private Cloud
More than ever, organizations rely on data storage and analysis for business operations. Companies need the ability to deploy data-driven solutions quickly. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 data management software provides a trusted, productive, and intelligent data platform that makes it possible for you to run your most demanding mission-critical applications, reduce time and cost of application deployment and maintenance, and deliver actionable insights to your entire organization.
Populating your data center with new, more powerful and energy efficient servers can deliver numerous benefits to your organization. By consolidating multiple older servers onto a new platform, you can save in the areas of data center space and port costs, management costs, and power and cooling costs.
In our tests, we found that the Lenovo ThinkServer RD630 could consolidate the workloads of three HP ProLiant DL385 G5 servers, while increasing overall performance by 82.6 percent and reducing power consumption by 58.8 percent, making the ThinkServer RD630 an excellent choice to reduce the costs associated with running your data center.
Consolidate and upgrade: Dell PowerEdge VRTX and Microsoft SQL Server 2014Principled Technologies
Your growing business shouldn’t run on aging hardware and software until it fails. Adding memory and upgrading processors will not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge VRTX running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while adding features such as high availability.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge VRTX can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge VRTX and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $16,390 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers and upgrading existing storage infrastructure. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
Setting up a failover cluster on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a straightforward process. In very little time, you can deploy Dell PowerEdge VRTX with up to four M-series servers, switches, and storage in a redundant configuration using Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. By setting up a failover cluster on your compact Dell PowerEdge VRTX, you can maximize server uptime to keep your business moving.
Ruchika Goswami has over 8 years of experience as a SQL Server Database Administrator. She has expertise in SQL Server, MongoDB, Cassandra and other databases. She is currently a Senior Database Administrator at Expedia, where she maintains databases and implements high availability solutions across multiple datacenters. Previously, she held database roles at companies like John Deere and SunGard, where she performed tasks like database maintenance, upgrades, backups and resolving performance issues. She has several Microsoft certifications in SQL Server.
Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations: Scalable performance and simplicity in s...Principled Technologies
Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations provide a range of virtualized infrastructure solutions to meet your business’s needs today and in the future. Easy to deploy, manage, and upgrade, these robust solutions can grow as your business does, all the while reducing the likelihood of extended downtime due to their highly available architecture.
Database performance and memory capacity with the Intel Xeon processor E5-266...Principled Technologies
The Dell PowerEdge M620 offers 24 memory slots, 50 percent more than the 16 slots offered by the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8, which enables the Dell solution to provide greater performance while delivering memory error protection. We found that the Dell PowerEdge M620 solution, built on the new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600v2 Series, delivered 182.2 percent more database performance and 92.0 percent faster response times than the previous version Intel Xeon E5-2640 processor-based HP ProLiant BL460c Gen 8 solution, while providing 12.5 percent more available memory and error protection. The additional memory capacity of the Dell solution allowed us to engage FRM technologies and still have more overall RAM capacity compared to the 16-slot HP server. The Dell PowerEdge M620 offered maximum memory capacity and protection with Fault Resilient Memory to keep your database workloads running strong and available for your business needs.
Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations: Configuration, management, and upgrade g...Principled Technologies
High availability infrastructures are an essential part of any business. To keep your data going and your company moving along, you need a system that not only handles your business in an effective, structured manner, but one that won’t fail.
Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations, which include the latest Dell PowerEdge servers and EqualLogic storage, provide you and your business with the tools to design and deploy a virtualization infrastructure with no hassles and continued support.
As we have shown in this Guide, a Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configuration takes the guesswork out of the typically complicated task of designing, setting up, and configuring a virtual infrastructure, and instead makes the process simple and straightforward. And, as your business grows, Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations are easy to upgrade so your infrastructure can grow as your business needs do.
VMmark 2.5.2 virtualization performance of the Dell EqualLogic PS6210XS stora...Principled Technologies
Virtualization is a critical part of data center computing. For your virtualization solution to succeed, it is essential that you have a storage platform capable of delivering the performance and capacity needed for a virtualized environment in a cost effective way. The Dell EqualLogic PS6210XS array, paired with a cluster of Dell PowerEdge M620 servers, ran 12 VMmark tiles for a total of 96 running VMs, and achieved a score of 14.80@12. This performance, along with its value and ease of management, make the Dell EqualLogic PS6210XS array an excellent investment.
Windows Server 2012 on Dell - Great performance and value for the next genera...Principled Technologies
The server and storage solution you choose for your SharePoint workloads can greatly affect the collaborative experience in the workplace. Not only should the servers be powerful enough to deliver a solid experience for the large number of end-users that need to collaborate on documents, the hardware solution should minimize the cost per user to help keep data center costs low. In our tests, we found that we could virtualize SharePoint on two Dell PowerEdge M620 servers and a Dell EqualLogic PS6110XV array and support the same 3,000 users as on the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8, but at a significantly lower cost. The Dell PowerEdge M620 solution cost only $28.40 per user; 26.0 percent less than the $38.35 per user that the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 solution would cost to purchase.
Choosing a server and storage solution that delivers the strong performance your data center requires while providing a lower cost per user can have a positive impact on your IT budget.
Dell PowerEdge R920 running Oracle Database: Benefits of upgrading with NVMe ...Principled Technologies
Strong server performance is essential to companies running Oracle Database. The new Dell PowerEdge R920 provides strong performance in its base configuration with 24 SAS hard disks, but this performance gets an enormous boost when running the configuration containing NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs. In our testing, the upgraded configuration of the Dell PowerEdge R920 delivered 14.9 times the database performance of the base configuration. In addition, in testing the raw I/O throughput of the NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs, we saw as much as 192.8 times the IOPS as compared to the base configuration. Given that the storage subsystem is critical in servers and specifically database applications, the performance improvements offered by NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs can lead to great service improvements for your customers, making this upgrade a very wise investment.
The switching method you choose for your SBC environment can help determine performance and the experience that end-users have. We found that unifying switching with Cisco VM-FEX resulted in up to 29 percent lower latency than a solution using a traditional vSwitch when running a Citrix XenApp hosted shared desktop farm. Furthermore, the Cisco VM-FEX solution used up to 53 percent less CPU than the vSwitch solution did under extreme network conditions. In addition to these performance advantages, Cisco UCS Manager provides a central point of management and a simplified method to add vSphere hosts to the VM-FEX-enabled vSwitch, which can reduce management time and costs.
As our results show, switching to Cisco VM-FEX can provide your users with a more responsive environment.
We discuss the features of the newest version of HDXPRT, including its updated applications, smaller size, and much shorter install and runtime. We also describe the three test scenarios in detail and show how we calculate the results.
Technical Report_Sercer 2012 R2 - Adeeb RajaAdeeb Raja
This technical training report provides guidance on installing and configuring Windows Server 2012 R2. It discusses the key features of Windows Server 2012 R2 including the installation options, user interface, Task Manager, IP Address Management, Active Directory, Hyper-V, ReFS, and IIS 8.0. It then covers installing Windows Server 2012 R2, configuring the local server, adding roles and features, managing Active Directory users and computers, and configuring Group Policy management. The report also provides information on using Hyper-V including virtual hard disks, storage quality of service, live migrations, and creating virtual machines. Finally, it discusses domain joining Windows 7 Ultimate to an Active Directory domain.
Dell PowerEdge M420: A Microsoft SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Re...Principled Technologies
By utilizing the Dell PowerEdge M420 blade server with SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances, you can create a self-contained, highly available database solution while using minimal rack space. The ability to cluster SQL Server instances for high availability and redundancy in such a small and dense form factor with the Dell PowerEdge M420 is a powerful combination for your enterprise database needs.
EEDAR provides analytics and business intelligence for the video game industry. It needed to accelerate its Cloud SQL Server application to update and analyze gigabytes of data across customer servers daily. EEDAR installed SafePeak, which acted as a caching proxy between application servers and SQL Server. This reduced database load by 90% on average and 95% during peaks, improving response times for dashboards and analytics from seconds to milliseconds while maintaining SLAs.
The document describes testing of two Dell PowerEdge servers' ability to support graphics-accelerated virtual desktops. A Dell PowerEdge R740xd server with 3 NVIDIA Tesla GPUs supported 96 virtual desktops, 50% more than a Dell PowerEdge R730 server with 2 GPUs which supported 64 desktops. Both servers maintained below 80% CPU utilization. The R740xd's ability to support more desktops in the same rack space allows more efficient use of datacenter resources.
Dell PowerEdge R920 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Migration and Benefits GuidePrincipled Technologies
The latest Dell PowerEdge R920 server is designed to provide highly scalable performance for large enterprises, with greater memory capacity, improved and expanded attached storage options, and processor architectures designed for high availability. Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is the perfect companion software to take advantage of the Dell PowerEdge R920’s impressive specifications. Upgrading has never looked more attractive, and with hardware/software upgrades must come data migration.
Migrating legacy database applications to the latest database technologies on newer Dell server platforms is a common task for businesses upgrading their hardware/software stack. As this guide shows, the process is straightforward and the cost benefits can be enormous. We calculated the savings attainable from multiple consolidation ratios, as well as how long it would take to pay off the replacement server. We found that a consolidation ratio of 13 to 1 could yield $531,725 in software savings, many times the cost of the replacement hardware itself. So not only will the business benefit from the massively-scalable current-generation Dell server technology paired with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 running SQL Server 2014, but you can save money in the process.
Configuring a highly available Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 environment on ...Principled Technologies
Setting up a highly available Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 environment on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a straightforward process. In very little time, you can deploy Dell PowerEdge VRTX with up to four M-series nodes, switches, and storage in a redundant configuration using Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, and setup your Exchange Server infrastructure. By setting up a highly available Exchange Server 2013 environment on your compact PowerEdge VRTX, you can ensure your Exchange workloads stay running to keep your business moving.
Consolidate and upgrade to save up to $172K: Dell PowerEdge R620 and Microso...Principled Technologies
Your growing business needs upgraded infrastructure to keep up with increased users and demand on your hardware. Adding memory and upgrading processors does not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge R620 running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while saving money and rack space.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge R620 can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL Server database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge R620 and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $172,573 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers. The Dell PowerEdge R620 can also consolidate 8U worth of legacy servers into 1U of space. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge R620 with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - Upgrading to SQL Server 2008 R2 WhitepaperMicrosoft Private Cloud
More than ever, organizations rely on data storage and analysis for business operations. Companies need the ability to deploy data-driven solutions quickly. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 data management software provides a trusted, productive, and intelligent data platform that makes it possible for you to run your most demanding mission-critical applications, reduce time and cost of application deployment and maintenance, and deliver actionable insights to your entire organization.
Populating your data center with new, more powerful and energy efficient servers can deliver numerous benefits to your organization. By consolidating multiple older servers onto a new platform, you can save in the areas of data center space and port costs, management costs, and power and cooling costs.
In our tests, we found that the Lenovo ThinkServer RD630 could consolidate the workloads of three HP ProLiant DL385 G5 servers, while increasing overall performance by 82.6 percent and reducing power consumption by 58.8 percent, making the ThinkServer RD630 an excellent choice to reduce the costs associated with running your data center.
Consolidate and upgrade: Dell PowerEdge VRTX and Microsoft SQL Server 2014Principled Technologies
Your growing business shouldn’t run on aging hardware and software until it fails. Adding memory and upgrading processors will not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge VRTX running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while adding features such as high availability.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge VRTX can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge VRTX and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $16,390 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers and upgrading existing storage infrastructure. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
Setting up a failover cluster on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a straightforward process. In very little time, you can deploy Dell PowerEdge VRTX with up to four M-series servers, switches, and storage in a redundant configuration using Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. By setting up a failover cluster on your compact Dell PowerEdge VRTX, you can maximize server uptime to keep your business moving.
Ruchika Goswami has over 8 years of experience as a SQL Server Database Administrator. She has expertise in SQL Server, MongoDB, Cassandra and other databases. She is currently a Senior Database Administrator at Expedia, where she maintains databases and implements high availability solutions across multiple datacenters. Previously, she held database roles at companies like John Deere and SunGard, where she performed tasks like database maintenance, upgrades, backups and resolving performance issues. She has several Microsoft certifications in SQL Server.
Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations: Scalable performance and simplicity in s...Principled Technologies
Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations provide a range of virtualized infrastructure solutions to meet your business’s needs today and in the future. Easy to deploy, manage, and upgrade, these robust solutions can grow as your business does, all the while reducing the likelihood of extended downtime due to their highly available architecture.
Database performance and memory capacity with the Intel Xeon processor E5-266...Principled Technologies
The Dell PowerEdge M620 offers 24 memory slots, 50 percent more than the 16 slots offered by the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8, which enables the Dell solution to provide greater performance while delivering memory error protection. We found that the Dell PowerEdge M620 solution, built on the new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600v2 Series, delivered 182.2 percent more database performance and 92.0 percent faster response times than the previous version Intel Xeon E5-2640 processor-based HP ProLiant BL460c Gen 8 solution, while providing 12.5 percent more available memory and error protection. The additional memory capacity of the Dell solution allowed us to engage FRM technologies and still have more overall RAM capacity compared to the 16-slot HP server. The Dell PowerEdge M620 offered maximum memory capacity and protection with Fault Resilient Memory to keep your database workloads running strong and available for your business needs.
Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations: Configuration, management, and upgrade g...Principled Technologies
High availability infrastructures are an essential part of any business. To keep your data going and your company moving along, you need a system that not only handles your business in an effective, structured manner, but one that won’t fail.
Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations, which include the latest Dell PowerEdge servers and EqualLogic storage, provide you and your business with the tools to design and deploy a virtualization infrastructure with no hassles and continued support.
As we have shown in this Guide, a Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configuration takes the guesswork out of the typically complicated task of designing, setting up, and configuring a virtual infrastructure, and instead makes the process simple and straightforward. And, as your business grows, Dell 3-2-1 Reference Configurations are easy to upgrade so your infrastructure can grow as your business needs do.
VMmark 2.5.2 virtualization performance of the Dell EqualLogic PS6210XS stora...Principled Technologies
Virtualization is a critical part of data center computing. For your virtualization solution to succeed, it is essential that you have a storage platform capable of delivering the performance and capacity needed for a virtualized environment in a cost effective way. The Dell EqualLogic PS6210XS array, paired with a cluster of Dell PowerEdge M620 servers, ran 12 VMmark tiles for a total of 96 running VMs, and achieved a score of 14.80@12. This performance, along with its value and ease of management, make the Dell EqualLogic PS6210XS array an excellent investment.
Windows Server 2012 on Dell - Great performance and value for the next genera...Principled Technologies
The server and storage solution you choose for your SharePoint workloads can greatly affect the collaborative experience in the workplace. Not only should the servers be powerful enough to deliver a solid experience for the large number of end-users that need to collaborate on documents, the hardware solution should minimize the cost per user to help keep data center costs low. In our tests, we found that we could virtualize SharePoint on two Dell PowerEdge M620 servers and a Dell EqualLogic PS6110XV array and support the same 3,000 users as on the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8, but at a significantly lower cost. The Dell PowerEdge M620 solution cost only $28.40 per user; 26.0 percent less than the $38.35 per user that the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 solution would cost to purchase.
Choosing a server and storage solution that delivers the strong performance your data center requires while providing a lower cost per user can have a positive impact on your IT budget.
Dell PowerEdge R920 running Oracle Database: Benefits of upgrading with NVMe ...Principled Technologies
Strong server performance is essential to companies running Oracle Database. The new Dell PowerEdge R920 provides strong performance in its base configuration with 24 SAS hard disks, but this performance gets an enormous boost when running the configuration containing NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs. In our testing, the upgraded configuration of the Dell PowerEdge R920 delivered 14.9 times the database performance of the base configuration. In addition, in testing the raw I/O throughput of the NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs, we saw as much as 192.8 times the IOPS as compared to the base configuration. Given that the storage subsystem is critical in servers and specifically database applications, the performance improvements offered by NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs can lead to great service improvements for your customers, making this upgrade a very wise investment.
The switching method you choose for your SBC environment can help determine performance and the experience that end-users have. We found that unifying switching with Cisco VM-FEX resulted in up to 29 percent lower latency than a solution using a traditional vSwitch when running a Citrix XenApp hosted shared desktop farm. Furthermore, the Cisco VM-FEX solution used up to 53 percent less CPU than the vSwitch solution did under extreme network conditions. In addition to these performance advantages, Cisco UCS Manager provides a central point of management and a simplified method to add vSphere hosts to the VM-FEX-enabled vSwitch, which can reduce management time and costs.
As our results show, switching to Cisco VM-FEX can provide your users with a more responsive environment.
We discuss the features of the newest version of HDXPRT, including its updated applications, smaller size, and much shorter install and runtime. We also describe the three test scenarios in detail and show how we calculate the results.
Technical Report_Sercer 2012 R2 - Adeeb RajaAdeeb Raja
This technical training report provides guidance on installing and configuring Windows Server 2012 R2. It discusses the key features of Windows Server 2012 R2 including the installation options, user interface, Task Manager, IP Address Management, Active Directory, Hyper-V, ReFS, and IIS 8.0. It then covers installing Windows Server 2012 R2, configuring the local server, adding roles and features, managing Active Directory users and computers, and configuring Group Policy management. The report also provides information on using Hyper-V including virtual hard disks, storage quality of service, live migrations, and creating virtual machines. Finally, it discusses domain joining Windows 7 Ultimate to an Active Directory domain.
Dell PowerEdge M420: A Microsoft SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Re...Principled Technologies
By utilizing the Dell PowerEdge M420 blade server with SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances, you can create a self-contained, highly available database solution while using minimal rack space. The ability to cluster SQL Server instances for high availability and redundancy in such a small and dense form factor with the Dell PowerEdge M420 is a powerful combination for your enterprise database needs.
EEDAR provides analytics and business intelligence for the video game industry. It needed to accelerate its Cloud SQL Server application to update and analyze gigabytes of data across customer servers daily. EEDAR installed SafePeak, which acted as a caching proxy between application servers and SQL Server. This reduced database load by 90% on average and 95% during peaks, improving response times for dashboards and analytics from seconds to milliseconds while maintaining SLAs.
The document describes testing of two Dell PowerEdge servers' ability to support graphics-accelerated virtual desktops. A Dell PowerEdge R740xd server with 3 NVIDIA Tesla GPUs supported 96 virtual desktops, 50% more than a Dell PowerEdge R730 server with 2 GPUs which supported 64 desktops. Both servers maintained below 80% CPU utilization. The R740xd's ability to support more desktops in the same rack space allows more efficient use of datacenter resources.
Dell PowerEdge R920 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Migration and Benefits GuidePrincipled Technologies
The latest Dell PowerEdge R920 server is designed to provide highly scalable performance for large enterprises, with greater memory capacity, improved and expanded attached storage options, and processor architectures designed for high availability. Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is the perfect companion software to take advantage of the Dell PowerEdge R920’s impressive specifications. Upgrading has never looked more attractive, and with hardware/software upgrades must come data migration.
Migrating legacy database applications to the latest database technologies on newer Dell server platforms is a common task for businesses upgrading their hardware/software stack. As this guide shows, the process is straightforward and the cost benefits can be enormous. We calculated the savings attainable from multiple consolidation ratios, as well as how long it would take to pay off the replacement server. We found that a consolidation ratio of 13 to 1 could yield $531,725 in software savings, many times the cost of the replacement hardware itself. So not only will the business benefit from the massively-scalable current-generation Dell server technology paired with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 running SQL Server 2014, but you can save money in the process.
Configuring a highly available Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 environment on ...Principled Technologies
Setting up a highly available Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 environment on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a straightforward process. In very little time, you can deploy Dell PowerEdge VRTX with up to four M-series nodes, switches, and storage in a redundant configuration using Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, and setup your Exchange Server infrastructure. By setting up a highly available Exchange Server 2013 environment on your compact PowerEdge VRTX, you can ensure your Exchange workloads stay running to keep your business moving.
Consolidate and upgrade to save up to $172K: Dell PowerEdge R620 and Microso...Principled Technologies
Your growing business needs upgraded infrastructure to keep up with increased users and demand on your hardware. Adding memory and upgrading processors does not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge R620 running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while saving money and rack space.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge R620 can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL Server database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge R620 and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $172,573 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers. The Dell PowerEdge R620 can also consolidate 8U worth of legacy servers into 1U of space. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge R620 with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
This white paper provides an architectural overview and configuration guidelines for deploying Microsoft SQL Server 2005 with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 on Dell PowerEdge servers and Dell storage systems. It documents best practices for implementing SQL Server 2005 solutions using Dell hardware and software components that have been tested and validated to help ensure successful deployment and optimal performance. The white paper covers storage configuration, network configuration, operating system configuration, and SQL Server configuration recommendations.
V2V migration to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization on the Dell PowerEdge R820Principled Technologies
Migrating from your existing hypervisor and legacy hardware to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization on a Dell PowerEdge R820 may be a great solution to maximize performance and lower costs, but many organizations consider such a migration too challenging. By choosing a hypervisor with an easy-to-use automated migration process, you can eliminate many of the concerns about a conducting a V2V migration. As we have shown through completing our own sample migration, performing a V2V migration from another hypervisor (including Xen, KVM, or vSphere) to a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization environment on a new Dell PowerEdge R820 is a straightforward process that could possibly provide significant benefits for your server infrastructure.
Component upgrades from Intel and Dell can increase VM density and boost perf...Principled Technologies
The document summarizes an experiment conducted by Principled Technologies that tested the performance improvements from upgrading server components. They found that upgrading from a Dell PowerEdge R720 to a Dell PowerEdge R730 server, along with upgrading the processor, operating system, storage drives and network cards, increased the number of supported VMs by 67% and database performance by 60%. Upgrading all components maximized performance benefits.
The document describes setting up a virtual infrastructure including installing and configuring Windows Server 2012, Exchange 2013, Active Directory, and client virtual machines. Key steps included installing VMware Workstation on two physical machines, creating virtual machines for a domain controller, Windows Server, and Windows clients, installing DNS, DHCP and Active Directory on the domain controller to set up the domain, connecting the client VMs to the domain, and installing and configuring Exchange 2013 for email between VMs. The virtual infrastructure allowed hands-on experience with server technologies on one physical set of hardware.
Sql server 2012_licensing_reference_guideamenus006
This document provides an overview of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 licensing. It describes the different editions of SQL Server 2012, including Enterprise, Business Intelligence, and Standard Editions. It also outlines the two main licensing models: Core-Based Licensing and Server+CAL Licensing. Finally, it discusses licensing SQL Server 2012 in virtual environments and for various advanced scenarios.
This document provides an overview of SQL Server 2012 licensing models and options for virtual environments. It describes both core-based licensing, where licenses are required for each physical core on a server, and Server+CAL licensing, where a server license is required along with client access licenses (CALs) for each user or device. For virtual environments, customers can choose to license individual virtual machines based on their allocated virtual cores, or achieve maximum virtualization by licensing an entire physical server with Enterprise Edition core licenses covered by Software Assurance.
The Future of Business Efficiency: Windows Server 2022 UnveiledDirect Deals, LLC
Virtualization is a key aspect of modern data centers, and Windows Server 2022 Download introduces enhancements to Hyper-V, the native hypervisor. It includes features like nested virtualization, which enables you to run virtual machines inside virtual machines, and improvements to virtualized GPUs, enhancing graphics-intensive workloads. These advancements can optimize resource utilization, simplify management, and improve the performance of your virtualized infrastructure.
Read More: - https://www.directdeals.com/the-future-of-business-efficiency-windows-server-2022-unveiled
Here are the steps to install Windows Server 2012 R2 on the two physical hosts:
1. Download the Windows Server 2012 R2 evaluation ISO file from the Microsoft Evaluation Center
and burn it to a DVD or copy it to a USB drive.
2. Install Windows Server 2012 R2 on HOST1 and HOST2 using the installation media. Select the
Server Core installation option.
3. During installation, configure static IP addresses, subnet masks and default gateways for the
primary network adapters on each host.
4. After installation is complete, install the Hyper-V role using the Add Roles and Features Wizard.
5. Configure the secondary network adapters on each host with
Introduction to microsoft sql server 2008 r2Eduardo Castro
In this presentation we review the new features in SQL 2008 R2.
Regards,
Ing. Eduardo Castro Martinez, PhD
http://comunidadwindows.org
http://ecastrom.blogspot.com
Upgrade to Dell EMC PowerEdge R6515 servers and gain better OLTP and VDI perf...Principled Technologies
Additionally, PowerEdge R6515 servers with 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors could lower licensing costs and also empower your business to explore Kubernetes with VMware Tanzu
Administrators can spend a great deal of time deploying and managing computing resources, especially when dealing with ROBO environments. The Dell PowerEdge VRTX, powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 v2 product family and running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2, gives administrators centralized management tools to help them provide time saving benefits and integrated toolsets.
In our hands-on testing, we found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX greatly simplified deployment through an easy, wizard-based setup of Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clusters across server nodes with the Dell OpenManage Cluster Configurator. It also provided versatile hardware resource reassignment through a shared PCIe bus and efficient centralized management through CMC and scripting. Finally, we found that the Dell System Update Utility worked seamlessly with Microsoft Cluster-Aware Updating to update server nodes while keeping the failover cluster online and minimizing downtime. These advantages make the Dell PowerEdge VRTX an attractive choice for those who seek to reduce the management overhead of their ROBO environments.
Upgrade to Dell EMC PowerEdge R940 servers with VMware vSphere 7.0 and gain g...Principled Technologies
The document summarizes a study that tested online transactional processing (OLTP) performance on two server solutions: a Dell EMC PowerEdge R940 server with VMware vSphere 7.0, and a previous-generation Dell EMC PowerEdge R930 server with vSphere 6.7. The study found that the R940 solution processed over 30% more operations per minute than the R930 solution. Upgrading to the R940 platform provides benefits like more processor cores, memory, and PCIe capacity. VMware vSphere 7.0 features like vLCM could help scale Dell EMC environments, and integrating with OpenManage for vCenter allows faster updating, upgrading, and compatibility checking.
Upgrading from WinS 2008/2008 R2 to WinS 2012iTawy Community
- Why Upgrade to Windows Server 2012?
- Operating System Hardware and Disk Space Requirements
- Supported Windows Clients and Servers
- Supported In-Place Upgrade Paths
- Functional Levels, Operation Master Roles, Active Directory Considerations
- Migration Tools for Windows Server 2012
- Hyper-V and Virtual Machines Considerations
- Summary
Windows Server 2012 is the most recent version of the Microsoft server operating system released in August 2012. Some key improvements include enhanced virtualization features in Hyper-V, storage migration capabilities, and the ability to easily switch a core installation to a GUI interface. Windows Server 2012 has four editions - Foundation, Essentials, Standard, and Datacenter - with each having different licensing models, hardware limitations, and supported server roles.
This document provides an overview of an IBM reference architecture for implementing high availability and disaster recovery for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 using AlwaysOn Availability Groups. The solution leverages IBM Flex System x240 compute nodes, Flex System V7000 storage, and Storwize V7000 and V3700 storage. It allows for automatic failover between two nodes in the main data center and manual failover to a node in a remote disaster recovery site, with the possibility of some data loss during asynchronous replication. The document describes the requirements, hardware components, architectural design, and deployment considerations for the solution.
Upgrading key components in servers can significantly improve performance and capacity. The report tested upgrading components in Dell PowerEdge servers. It found that upgrading to newer Dell PowerEdge R720 servers with Intel Xeon and SSD components, Windows Server 2012, and 10GbE networking supported 4.5 times as many VMs as the older Dell PowerEdge R710 servers. Each individual component upgrade, such as the processor, storage, or network card, increased performance. But upgrading all components together maximized the number of supported VMs, database transactions, and email users.
Similar to Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720 servers (20)
Bring ideas to life with the HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation - InfographicPrincipled Technologies
We compared CPU performance and noise output of an HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation in High Performance Mode to a similarly configured Dell Precision 3660 Tower Workstation in its out-of-box performance mode
Investing in GenAI: Cost‑benefit analysis of Dell on‑premises deployments vs....Principled Technologies
Conclusion
Diving into the world of GenAI has the potential to yield a great many benefits for your organization, but it first requires consideration for how best to implement those GenAI workloads. Whether your AI goals are to create a chatbot for online visitors, generate marketing materials, aid troubleshooting, or something else, implementing an AI solution requires careful planning and decision-making. A major decision is whether to host GenAI in the cloud or keep your data on premises. Traditional on-premises solutions can provide superior security and control, a substantial concern when dealing with large amounts of potentially sensitive data. But will supporting a GenAI solution on site be a drain on an organization’s IT budget?
In our research, we found that the value proposition is just the opposite: Hosting GenAI workloads on premises, either in a traditional Dell solution or using a managed Dell APEX pay-per-use solution, could significantly lower your GenAI costs over 3 years compared to hosting these workloads in the cloud. In fact, we found that a comparable AWS SageMaker solution would cost up to 3.8 times as much and an Azure ML solution would cost up to 3.6 times as much as GenAI on a Dell APEX pay-per-use solution. These results show that organizations looking to implement GenAI and reap the business benefits to come can find many advantages in an on-premises Dell solution, whether they opt to purchase and manage it themselves or choose a subscription-based Dell APEX pay-per-use solution. Choosing an on-premises Dell solution could save your organization significantly over hosting GenAI in the cloud, while giving you control over the security and privacy of your data as well as any updates and changes to the environment, and while ensuring your environment is managed consistently.
Workstations powered by Intel can play a vital role in CPU-intensive AI devel...Principled Technologies
In three AI development workflows, Intel processor-powered workstations delivered strong performance, without using their GPUs, making them a good choice for this part of the AI process
Conclusion
We executed three AI development workflows on tower workstations and mobile workstations from three vendors, with each workflow utilizing only the Intel CPU cores, and found that these platforms were suitable for carrying out various AI tasks. For two of the workflows, we learned that completing the tasks on the tower workstations took roughly half as much time as on the mobile workstations. This supports the idea that the tower workstations would be appropriate for a development environment for more complex models with a greater volume of data and that the mobile workstations would be well-suited for data scientists fine-tuning simpler models. In the third workflow, we explored tower workstation performance with different precision levels and learned that using 16-bit floating point precision allowed the workstations to execute the workflow in less time and also reduced memory usage dramatically. For all three AI workflows we executed, we consider the time the workstations needed to complete the tasks to be acceptable, and believe that these workstations can be appropriate, cost-effective choices for these kinds of activities.
Enable security features with no impact to OLTP performance with Dell PowerEd...Principled Technologies
Get comparable online transaction processing (OLTP) performance with or without enabling AMD Secure Memory Encryption and AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization - Encrypted State
Conclusion
You’ve likely already implemented many security measures for your servers, which may include physical security for the data center, hardware-level security, and software-level security. With the cost of data breaches high and still growing, however, wise IT teams will consider what additional security measures they may be able to implement.
AMD SME and SEV-ES are technologies that are already available within your AMD processor-powered 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers—and in our testing, we saw that they can offer extra layers of security without affecting performance. We compared the online transaction processing performance of a Dell PowerEdge R7625 server, powered by AMD EPYC 9274F processors, with and without these two security features enabled. We found that enabling AMD Secure Memory Encryption and Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Encrypted State did not impact performance at all.
If your team is assessing areas where you might be able to enhance security—without paying a large performance cost—consider enabling AME SME and AMD SEV-ES in your Dell PowerEdge servers.
Improving energy efficiency in the data center: Endure higher temperatures wi...Principled Technologies
In high-temperature test scenarios, a Dell PowerEdge HS5620 server continued running an intensive workload without component warnings or failures, while a Supermicro SYS‑621C-TN12R server failed
Conclusion: Remain resilient in high temperatures with the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 to help increase efficiency
Increasing your data center’s temperature can help your organization make strides in energy efficiency and cooling cost savings. With servers that can hold up to these higher everyday temperatures—as well as high temperatures due to unforeseen circumstances—your business can continue to deliver the performance your apps and clients require.
When we ran an intensive floating-point workload on a Dell PowerEdge HS5620 and a Supermicro SYS-621CTN12R in three scenario types simulating typical operations at 25°C, a fan failure, and an HVAC malfunction, the Dell server experienced no component warnings or failures. In contrast, the Supermicro server experienced warnings in all three scenario types and experienced component failures in the latter two tests, rendering the system unusable. When we inspected and analyzed each system, we found that the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 server’s motherboard layout, fans, and chassis offered cooling design advantages.
For businesses aiming to meet sustainability goals by running hotter data centers, as well as those concerned with server cooling design, the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 is a strong contender to take on higher temperatures during day-to-day operations and unexpected malfunctions.
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift: An easily deployable and powe...Principled Technologies
The 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor‑powered solution deployed in less than two hours and ran a Kubernetes container-based generative AI workload effectively
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift: An easily deployable and powe...Principled Technologies
The 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor‑powered solution deployed in less than two hours and ran a generative AI workload effectively
Conclusion
The appeal of incorporating GenAI into your organization’s operations is likely great. Getting started with an efficient solution for your next LLM workload or application can seem daunting because of the changing hardware and software landscape, but Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors could provide the solution you need. We started with a Dell Validated Design as a reference, and then went on to modify the deployment as necessary for our Llama 2 workload. The Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift solution worked well for our LLM, and by using this deployment guide in conjunction with numerous Dell documents and some flexibility, you could be well on your way to innovating your next GenAI breakthrough.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)
For organizations running clusters of moderately configured, older Dell PowerEdge servers with a previous version of VCF, upgrading to better-configured modern servers can provide a significant performance boost and more.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5
If your company is struggling with underperforming infrastructure, upgrading to 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers running VCF 5.1 could be just what you need to handle more database throughput and reduce vSAN latencies. As an additional benefit to IT admins, we also found that the embedded VMware Aria Operation adapter provided useful infrastructure insights.
Realize 2.1X the performance with 20% less power with AMD EPYC processor-back...Principled Technologies
Three AMD EPYC processor-based two-processor solutions outshined comparable Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based solutions by handling more Redis workload transactions and requests while consuming less power
Conclusion
Performance and energy efficiency are significant factors in processor selection for servers running data-intensive workloads, such as Redis. We compared the Redis performance and energy consumption of a server cluster in three AMD EPYC two-processor configurations against that of a server cluster in two Intel Xeon Scalable two-processor configurations. In each of our three test scenarios, the server cluster backed by AMD EPYC processors outperformed the server cluster backed by Intel Xeon Scalable processors. In addition, one of the AMD EPYC processor-based clusters consumed 20 percent less power than its Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based counterpart. Combining these measurements gave us power efficiency metrics that demonstrate how valuable AMD EPYC processor-based servers could be—you could see better performance per watt with these AMD EPYC processor-based server clusters and potentially get more from your Redis or other data intensive applications and workloads while reducing data center power costs.
Improve performance and gain room to grow by easily migrating to a modern Ope...Principled Technologies
We deployed this modern environment, then migrated database VMs from legacy servers and saw performance improvements that support consolidation
Conclusion
If your organization’s transactional databases are running on gear that is several years old, you have much to gain by upgrading to modern servers with new processors and networking components and an OpenShift environment. In our testing, a modern OpenShift environment with a cluster of three Dell PowerEdge R7615 servers with 4th Generation AMD EPYC processors and high-speed 100Gb Broadcom NICs outperformed a legacy environment with MySQL VMs running on a cluster of three Dell PowerEdge R7515 servers with 3rd Generation AMD EPYC processors and 25Gb Broadcom NICs. We also easily migrated a VM from the legacy environment to the modern environment, with only a few steps required to set up and less than ten minutes of hands-on time. The performance advantage of the modern servers would allow a company to reduce the number of servers necessary to perform a given amount of database work, thus lowering operational expenditures such as power and cooling and IT staff time for maintenance. The high-speed 100Gb Broadcom NICs in this solution also give companies better network performance and networking capacity to grow as they embrace emerging technologies such as AI that put great demands on networks.
Boost PC performance: How more available memory can improve productivityPrincipled Technologies
With more memory available, system performance of three Dell devices increased, which can translate to a better user experience
Conclusion
When your system has plenty of RAM to meet your needs, you can efficiently access the applications and data you need to finish projects and to-do lists without sacrificing time and focus. Our test results show that with more memory available, three Dell PCs delivered better performance and took less time to complete the Procyon Office Productivity benchmark. These advantages translate to users being able to complete workflows more quickly and multitask more easily. Whether you need the mobility of the Latitude 5440, the creative capabilities of the Precision 3470, or the high performance of the OptiPlex Tower Plus 7010, configuring your system with more RAM can help keep processes running smoothly, enabling you to do more without compromising performance.
Deploy with confidence: VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 on next gen Dell PowerEdg...Principled Technologies
A Principled Technologies deployment guide
Conclusion
Deploying VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 on next gen Dell PowerEdge servers brings together critical virtualization capabilities and high-performing hardware infrastructure. Relying on our hands-on experience, this deployment guide offers a comprehensive roadmap that can guide your organization through the seamless integration of advanced VMware cloud solutions with the performance and reliability of Dell PowerEdge servers. In addition to the deployment efficiency, the Cloud Foundation 5.1 and PowerEdge solution delivered strong performance while running a MySQL database workload. By leveraging VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 and PowerEdge servers, you could help your organization embrace cloud computing with confidence, potentially unlocking a new level of agility, scalability, and efficiency in your data center operations.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5
Conclusion
If your company is struggling with underperforming infrastructure, upgrading to 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers running VCF 5.1 could be just what you need to handle more database throughput and reduce vSAN latencies. We found that a Dell PowerEdge R760 server cluster running VCF 5.1 processed over 78 percent more TPM and 79 percent more NOPM than a Dell PowerEdge R750 server cluster running VCF 4.5. It’s also worth noting that the PowerEdge R750 cluster bottlenecked on vSAN storage, with max write latency at 8.9ms. For reference, the PowerEdge R760 cluster clocked in at 3.8ms max write latency. This higher latency is due in part to the single disk group per host on the moderately configured PowerEdge R750 cluster, while the better-configured PowerEdge R760 cluster supported four disk groups per host. As an additional benefit to IT admins, we also found that the embedded VMware Aria Operation adapter provided useful infrastructure insights.
Based on our research using publicly available materials, it appears that Dell supports nine of the ten PC security features we investigated, HP supports six of them, and Lenovo supports three features.
Increase security, sustainability, and efficiency with robust Dell server man...Principled Technologies
Compared to the Supermicro management portfolio
Conclusion
Choosing a vendor for server purchases is about more than just the hardware platform. Decision-makers must also consider more long-term concerns, including system/data security, energy efficiency, and ease of management. These concerns make the systems management tools a vendor offers as important as the hardware.
We investigated the features and capabilities of server management tools from Dell and Supermicro, comparing Dell iDRAC9 against Supermicro IPMI for embedded server management and Dell OpenManage Enterprise and CloudIQ against Supermicro Server Manager for one-to-many device and console management and monitoring. We found that the Dell management tools provided more comprehensive security, sustainability, and management/monitoring features and capabilities than Supermicro servers did. In addition, Dell tools automated more tasks to ease server management, resulting in significant time savings for administrators versus having to do the same tasks manually with Supermicro tools.
When making a server purchase, a vendor’s associated management products are critical to protect data, support a more sustainable environment, and to ease the maintenance of systems. Our tests and research showed that the Dell management portfolio for PowerEdge servers offered more features to help organizations meet these goals than the comparable Supermicro management products.
Increase security, sustainability, and efficiency with robust Dell server man...Principled Technologies
Compared to the Supermicro management portfolio
Conclusion
Choosing a vendor for server purchases is about more than just the hardware platform. Decision-makers must also consider more long-term concerns, including system/data security, energy efficiency, and ease of management. These concerns make the systems management tools a vendor offers as important as the hardware.
We investigated the features and capabilities of server management tools from Dell and Supermicro, comparing Dell iDRAC9 against Supermicro IPMI for embedded server management and Dell OpenManage Enterprise and CloudIQ against Supermicro Server Manager for one-to-many device and console management and monitoring. We found that the Dell management tools provided more comprehensive security, sustainability, and management/monitoring features and capabilities than Supermicro servers did. In addition, Dell tools automated more tasks to ease server management, resulting in significant time savings for administrators versus having to do the same tasks manually with Supermicro tools.
When making a server purchase, a vendor’s associated management products are critical to protect data, support a more sustainable environment, and to ease the maintenance of systems. Our tests and research showed that the Dell management portfolio for PowerEdge servers offered more features to help organizations meet these goals than the comparable Supermicro management products.
Scale up your storage with higher-performing Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS ...Principled Technologies
In our tests, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS outperformed similarly configured solutions from Vendor A, achieving more IOPS, better throughput, and more consistent performance on both NVMe-supported configurations and configurations backed by Elastic Block Store (EBS) alone.
Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS supports a full NVMe backed configuration, but Vendor A doesn’t—its solution uses EBS for storage capacity and NVMe as an extended read cache—which means APEX Block Storage for AWS can deliver faster storage performance.
Scale up your storage with higher-performing Dell APEX Block Storage for AWSPrincipled Technologies
Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered stronger and more consistent storage performance for better business agility than a Vendor A solution
Conclusion
Enterprises desiring the flexibility and convenience of the cloud for their block storage workloads can find fast-performing solutions with the enterprise storage features they’re used to in on-premises infrastructure by selecting Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS.
Our hands-on tests showed that compared to the Vendor A solution, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered stronger, more consistent storage performance in both NVMe-supported and EBS-backed configurations. Using NVMe-supported configurations, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS achieved 4.7x the random read IOPS and 5.1x the throughput on sequential read operations per node vs. Vendor A. In our EBS-backed comparison, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered 2.2x the throughput per node on sequential read operations vs. Vendor A.
Plus, the ability to scale beyond three nodes—up to 512 storage nodes with capacity of up to 8 PBs—enables Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS to help ensure performance and capacity as your team plans for the future.
Get in and stay in the productivity zone with the HP Z2 G9 Tower WorkstationPrincipled Technologies
We compared CPU performance and noise output of an HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation in High Performance Mode to Dell Precision 3660 and 5860 tower workstations in optimized performance modes
Conclusion
HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation users can change the BIOS settings to dial in the performance mode that best suits their needs: High Performance Mode, Performance Mode, or Quiet Mode. In good
news for both creative and technical professionals, we found that an Intel Core i9-13900 processor-powered HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation set to High Performance mode received higher CPU-based benchmark scores than both a similarly configured Dell Precision 3660 and a Dell Precision 5860 equipped with an Intel Xeon w5-2455x processor. Plus, the HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation was quieter while running CPU-intensive Cinebench 2024 and SPECapc for Solidworks 2022 workloads than both Dell Precision tower workstations. This means HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation users who prize performance over everything else can do so without sacrificing a quiet workspace.
Threats to mobile devices are more prevalent and increasing in scope and complexity. Users of mobile devices desire to take full advantage of the features
available on those devices, but many of the features provide convenience and capability but sacrifice security. This best practices guide outlines steps the users can take to better protect personal devices and information.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 5DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 5. In this session, we will cover CI/CD with devops.
Topics covered:
CI/CD with in UiPath
End-to-end overview of CI/CD pipeline with Azure devops
Speaker:
Lyndsey Byblow, Test Suite Sales Engineer @ UiPath, Inc.
Generative AI Deep Dive: Advancing from Proof of Concept to ProductionAggregage
Join Maher Hanafi, VP of Engineering at Betterworks, in this new session where he'll share a practical framework to transform Gen AI prototypes into impactful products! He'll delve into the complexities of data collection and management, model selection and optimization, and ensuring security, scalability, and responsible use.
Building RAG with self-deployed Milvus vector database and Snowpark Container...Zilliz
This talk will give hands-on advice on building RAG applications with an open-source Milvus database deployed as a docker container. We will also introduce the integration of Milvus with Snowpark Container Services.
Unlock the Future of Search with MongoDB Atlas_ Vector Search Unleashed.pdfMalak Abu Hammad
Discover how MongoDB Atlas and vector search technology can revolutionize your application's search capabilities. This comprehensive presentation covers:
* What is Vector Search?
* Importance and benefits of vector search
* Practical use cases across various industries
* Step-by-step implementation guide
* Live demos with code snippets
* Enhancing LLM capabilities with vector search
* Best practices and optimization strategies
Perfect for developers, AI enthusiasts, and tech leaders. Learn how to leverage MongoDB Atlas to deliver highly relevant, context-aware search results, transforming your data retrieval process. Stay ahead in tech innovation and maximize the potential of your applications.
#MongoDB #VectorSearch #AI #SemanticSearch #TechInnovation #DataScience #LLM #MachineLearning #SearchTechnology
Let's Integrate MuleSoft RPA, COMPOSER, APM with AWS IDP along with Slackshyamraj55
Discover the seamless integration of RPA (Robotic Process Automation), COMPOSER, and APM with AWS IDP enhanced with Slack notifications. Explore how these technologies converge to streamline workflows, optimize performance, and ensure secure access, all while leveraging the power of AWS IDP and real-time communication via Slack notifications.
Sudheer Mechineni, Head of Application Frameworks, Standard Chartered Bank
Discover how Standard Chartered Bank harnessed the power of Neo4j to transform complex data access challenges into a dynamic, scalable graph database solution. This keynote will cover their journey from initial adoption to deploying a fully automated, enterprise-grade causal cluster, highlighting key strategies for modelling organisational changes and ensuring robust disaster recovery. Learn how these innovations have not only enhanced Standard Chartered Bank’s data infrastructure but also positioned them as pioneers in the banking sector’s adoption of graph technology.
“An Outlook of the Ongoing and Future Relationship between Blockchain Technologies and Process-aware Information Systems.” Invited talk at the joint workshop on Blockchain for Information Systems (BC4IS) and Blockchain for Trusted Data Sharing (B4TDS), co-located with with the 36th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE), 3 June 2024, Limassol, Cyprus.
Goodbye Windows 11: Make Way for Nitrux Linux 3.5.0!SOFTTECHHUB
As the digital landscape continually evolves, operating systems play a critical role in shaping user experiences and productivity. The launch of Nitrux Linux 3.5.0 marks a significant milestone, offering a robust alternative to traditional systems such as Windows 11. This article delves into the essence of Nitrux Linux 3.5.0, exploring its unique features, advantages, and how it stands as a compelling choice for both casual users and tech enthusiasts.
Climate Impact of Software Testing at Nordic Testing DaysKari Kakkonen
My slides at Nordic Testing Days 6.6.2024
Climate impact / sustainability of software testing discussed on the talk. ICT and testing must carry their part of global responsibility to help with the climat warming. We can minimize the carbon footprint but we can also have a carbon handprint, a positive impact on the climate. Quality characteristics can be added with sustainability, and then measured continuously. Test environments can be used less, and in smaller scale and on demand. Test techniques can be used in optimizing or minimizing number of tests. Test automation can be used to speed up testing.
Alt. GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using ...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
In his public lecture, Christian Timmerer provides insights into the fascinating history of video streaming, starting from its humble beginnings before YouTube to the groundbreaking technologies that now dominate platforms like Netflix and ORF ON. Timmerer also presents provocative contributions of his own that have significantly influenced the industry. He concludes by looking at future challenges and invites the audience to join in a discussion.
Full-RAG: A modern architecture for hyper-personalizationZilliz
Mike Del Balso, CEO & Co-Founder at Tecton, presents "Full RAG," a novel approach to AI recommendation systems, aiming to push beyond the limitations of traditional models through a deep integration of contextual insights and real-time data, leveraging the Retrieval-Augmented Generation architecture. This talk will outline Full RAG's potential to significantly enhance personalization, address engineering challenges such as data management and model training, and introduce data enrichment with reranking as a key solution. Attendees will gain crucial insights into the importance of hyperpersonalization in AI, the capabilities of Full RAG for advanced personalization, and strategies for managing complex data integrations for deploying cutting-edge AI solutions.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of technologies, XML continues to play a vital role in structuring, storing, and transporting data across diverse systems. The recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) present new methodologies for enhancing XML development workflows, introducing efficiency, automation, and intelligent capabilities. This presentation will outline the scope and perspective of utilizing AI in XML development. The potential benefits and the possible pitfalls will be highlighted, providing a balanced view of the subject.
We will explore the capabilities of AI in understanding XML markup languages and autonomously creating structured XML content. Additionally, we will examine the capacity of AI to enrich plain text with appropriate XML markup. Practical examples and methodological guidelines will be provided to elucidate how AI can be effectively prompted to interpret and generate accurate XML markup.
Further emphasis will be placed on the role of AI in developing XSLT, or schemas such as XSD and Schematron. We will address the techniques and strategies adopted to create prompts for generating code, explaining code, or refactoring the code, and the results achieved.
The discussion will extend to how AI can be used to transform XML content. In particular, the focus will be on the use of AI XPath extension functions in XSLT, Schematron, Schematron Quick Fixes, or for XML content refactoring.
The presentation aims to deliver a comprehensive overview of AI usage in XML development, providing attendees with the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions. Whether you’re at the early stages of adopting AI or considering integrating it in advanced XML development, this presentation will cover all levels of expertise.
By highlighting the potential advantages and challenges of integrating AI with XML development tools and languages, the presentation seeks to inspire thoughtful conversation around the future of XML development. We’ll not only delve into the technical aspects of AI-powered XML development but also discuss practical implications and possible future directions.
Cosa hanno in comune un mattoncino Lego e la backdoor XZ?Speck&Tech
ABSTRACT: A prima vista, un mattoncino Lego e la backdoor XZ potrebbero avere in comune il fatto di essere entrambi blocchi di costruzione, o dipendenze di progetti creativi e software. La realtà è che un mattoncino Lego e il caso della backdoor XZ hanno molto di più di tutto ciò in comune.
Partecipate alla presentazione per immergervi in una storia di interoperabilità, standard e formati aperti, per poi discutere del ruolo importante che i contributori hanno in una comunità open source sostenibile.
BIO: Sostenitrice del software libero e dei formati standard e aperti. È stata un membro attivo dei progetti Fedora e openSUSE e ha co-fondato l'Associazione LibreItalia dove è stata coinvolta in diversi eventi, migrazioni e formazione relativi a LibreOffice. In precedenza ha lavorato a migrazioni e corsi di formazione su LibreOffice per diverse amministrazioni pubbliche e privati. Da gennaio 2020 lavora in SUSE come Software Release Engineer per Uyuni e SUSE Manager e quando non segue la sua passione per i computer e per Geeko coltiva la sua curiosità per l'astronomia (da cui deriva il suo nickname deneb_alpha).
Cosa hanno in comune un mattoncino Lego e la backdoor XZ?
Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720 servers
1. MIGRATING TO MICROSOFT WINDOWS SERVER 2012 AND MICROSOFT SQL SERVER 2012
ON DELL POWEREDGE R720 SERVERS
PERFORMANCE REPORT TCO REPORT
A Principled Technologies configuration guide commissioned by Dell Inc.
2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of contents ............................................................................ 2
Introduction.................................................................................... 4
Why consider migrating to SQL Server 2012 on a Dell PowerEdge
R720? ................................................................................................. 5
Features of the new Dell PowerEdge R720 ....................................... 5
About Microsoft Windows Server 2012 ............................................ 7
About Microsoft SQL Server 2012 ..................................................... 7
Consolidation with Dell and Microsoft technology adds features and
simplifies your infrastructure .......................................................... 8
The power of consolidation .............................................................. 8
What is consolidation? ...................................................................... 8
Why consolidate? .............................................................................. 9
Sizing and baseline performance .................................................... 10
We show you how: Preparing for the move ................................... 11
Evaluating your databases .............................................................. 11
Gathering baseline performance data ........................................... 12
Configuring your internal storage ................................................. 12
Installing Windows Server 2012 and enabling the Hyper-V role .. 13
Creating your virtual machines ....................................................... 15
Installing SQL Server 2012 on your virtual machines .................... 16
We show you how: Making the move ............................................ 19
Upgrade Advisor makes it easy ...................................................... 19
Side-by-side migration .................................................................... 22
Moving your SQL Server 2005 database: performing the backup . 22
Restoring your database to the SQL Server 2012 virtual machine 23
We show you how: After the move ............................................... 24
Logins and dependencies ................................................................ 24
Windows and SQL Server logins ................................................... 24
SQL Server Agent jobs ................................................................... 26
Other external dependencies ....................................................... 26
Summing it all up .......................................................................... 27
Appendix A – Example database survey......................................... 28
Appendix B – Installing windows and enabling Hyper-V ................. 31
Installing Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Edition ...... 31
Creating new disks in Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Edition ... 32
Configuring Windows Update .......................................................... 32
Adding the Hyper-V role .................................................................. 32
Appendix C – Creating virtual machines ......................................... 34
Appendix D – Installing SQL Server 2012 ........................................ 37
Appendix E – Installing Upgrade Advisor ....................................... 39
Appendix F – Migrating databases ................................................. 41
3. Backing up a SQL Server 2005 database .......................................... 41
Restoring a database to SQL Server 2012 ........................................ 42
Appendix G – Transferring Windows logins.................................... 45
Appendix H – Transferring SQL Server logins ................................. 46
Mapping transferred logins to database users .............................. 46
About Principled Technologies ...................................................... 48
4. INTRODUCTION
New Dell server technology boasts more powerful processors,
faster and greater memory capacity, as well as improved and
expanded internal storage; all with increased energy efficiency. In
addition, breakthroughs in Microsoft virtualization, database and
server operating system technologies offer improved operational
efficiencies. For these reasons, migrating legacy servers that run older
database workloads onto a new virtualized server platform makes
sense for companies of all sizes. But how do you upgrade your
database software and move your databases without losing
information vital to your business while minimizing downtime?
In this guide, we show you how to successfully migrate legacy
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 databases running on older servers onto
virtual machines (VMs) on a new Dell PowerEdge R720 and update
them to reap the benefits of Microsoft SQL Server 2012. From
installing Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V™, to creating VMs
and installing the new database software with SQL Server 2012,
replacing and consolidating your current infrastructure with a new
server and software solution is a simple, straightforward process.
In addition, we have created two companion reports for this
study. The first details the results of our performance tests for this
solution, which show that it can consolidate the workloads of eight
legacy HP ProLiant DL360 G4p servers while improving performance
by an average of 412.4 percent per VM.
http://www.principledtechnologies.com/clients/reports/Dell/R720_C
onsolidation_Performance_Server2012_SQL2012_1112.pdf. The
second report explains our detailed total cost of ownership (TCO)
analysis that shows the savings available through investing in a new
Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and A Principled Technologies configuration guide 4
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
servers
5. Dell PowerEdge R720 solution to migrate and consolidate your
existing infrastructure.
http://www.principledtechnologies.com/clients/reports/Dell/R720_C
onsolidation_TCO_Server2012_SQL2012_1112.pdf.
NOTE: Those with more complex configurations, special
requirements, or the desire to avoid doing the migration themselves
may wish to investigate the consulting services Microsoft and Dell
offer.
Why consider migrating to SQL Server 2012 on a Dell PowerEdge R720?
Migrating your databases from older legacy servers to the new
Dell PowerEdge R720 running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and
SQL Server 2012 requires some time and planning, but delivers clear
benefits. In this section, we present just a few of the benefits that the
new Dell PowerEdge R720, Microsoft Windows Server 2012, and
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 can provide your business.
Features of the new Dell PowerEdge R720
Figure 1: The new Dell PowerEdge R720 server, powered by the Intel Xeon
processor E5-2680.
The new Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2680-powered Dell
PowerEdge R720 2U rack server incorporates many enhancements
and features designed to improve performance, lower power
consumption, and ease maintenance. Some of these features include
the following:
Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and A Principled Technologies configuration guide 5
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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6. Performance. Dell engineered the PowerEdge R720 to handle
complex workloads, with I/O and internal data management
technologies (i.e., NSC, NPAR, CacheCade) to allow faster access to
information and GPU accelerators for faster than ever computational
performance.
Processors. The Dell PowerEdge R720 is powered by two Intel Xeon
processors E5-2680, which incorporate the very latest in technology
from Intel. The powerful processors provide exceptional performance
and make the PowerEdge R720 a solid virtualization platform.
Power efficiency. Dell PowerEdge R720 servers implement leading
industry power efficiency standards, and are designed to optimize
performance while maintaining low power consumption. Automated
tracking and regulation of thermal activity, intelligent design of right-
sized power options, and high efficiency fans and airflow
management work to save power, saving you money in the process.
Management. The Dell PowerEdge R720, like all late-model Dell
servers, comes with the Dell Lifecycle Controller. This tool simplifies
server management by providing a single interface for management
functions and by storing critical system information in the system
itself. There are no CDs or USB keys to keep track of for drivers or
firmware.
Storage. With impressive storage capacity for small business servers,
the Dell PowerEdge R720 is available in both an 8-bay and 16-bay
chassis.
Memory. The Dell PowerEdge R720 holds up to 768 GB of RAM, many
times the RAM capacity of older small business servers, allowing for
powerful flexibility with virtualized database solutions.
Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and A Principled Technologies configuration guide 6
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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7. About Microsoft Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2012, the latest release of this server OS from
Microsoft, includes many new features and enhancements. According
to Microsoft, Windows Server 2012 focuses on four core areas:
Beyond virtualization. Windows Server 2012 provides a
robust and dynamic virtualization platform through Hyper-V,
and includes new features that provide flexible options for
delivering cloud services.
The power of many servers, the simplicity of one. Windows
Server 2012 offers improvements in its features that allow for
better-than-ever high availability and ease of management for
multiple-server infrastructures.
Every app, any cloud. Windows Server 2012 delivers a
scalable and flexible Web and application platform by
providing a consistent and open set of tools and frameworks
that apply to applications on-premises, in the cloud, or in a
hybrid environment.
Modern work style, enabled. Microsoft Windows Server 2012
empowers users and IT staff with remote access to data,
applications, and simpler management tools while
strengthening security and compliance.
About Microsoft SQL Server 2012
SQL Server 2012 is the latest release of Microsoft’s database
management platform. Microsoft has added new features to enhance
performance, security, and management. SQL Server 2012 introduces
Data Quality Services (DQS) to improve the usability of collected data,
both locally and from cloud-based data service providers. In addition,
SQL Server 2012 is more tightly-integrated with both Microsoft Office
client applications and with Microsoft SharePoint® Server, providing
greater ease-of-use to users.
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Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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8. CONSOLIDATION WITH DELL AND MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY ADDS
FEATURES AND SIMPLIFIES YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE
In addition to migrating your databases to the new Dell
PowerEdge R720, this powerful server allows your organization to
also consolidate via virtualization with Microsoft Hyper-V while
adding features, improving performance, and realizing savings
simultaneously.
The power of consolidation
What is consolidation?
Generally speaking, consolidation is the process of combining
multiple items to make a single, more effective unit. In an IT context,
you can consolidate the following:
Physical servers. After a successful server consolidation,
all applications should run on fewer servers than before.
Ideally, those applications should run at least as well as
they did previously and potentially better. In our
accompanying performance report,1 we highlight the
dramatic performance gains realized in a sample migration
to the Dell PowerEdge R720.
Storage. Depending on your setup, consolidating servers
may let you also consolidate storage by moving data from
a number of servers to a single large disk storage
subsystem in a new server. In the case of the Dell
PowerEdge R720, this is possible due to its internal storage
capacity – up to 24TB total.
1
http://www.principledtechnologies.com/clients/reports/Dell/R720_Consolidation_
Performance_Server2012_SQL2012_1112.pdf
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Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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9. Space. As you consolidate servers, you will likely reduce
the number of racks or even the number of locations that
house servers.
In this database-specific guide, we address the migration of
SQL Server 2005 instances running on a legacy server to a Dell
PowerEdge R720 running Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V, with a
SQL Server 2012 database instance inside a virtual machine. As our
consolidation performance study shows, this solution successfully
consolidated eight of these workloads while delivering superior
performance. As we will demonstrate, migrating your legacy database
instances is a simple and easy-to-follow process, allowing you to take
full advantage of this solution by also consolidating multiple legacy
servers onto a single Dell PowerEdge R720 server.
Why consolidate?
An effective server consolidation effort has the potential to
yield an environment with more consistent management practices
and improved reliability, security, and hardware utilization—all while
maintaining or exceeding the previous level of application
performance.
Consolidation can also yield a variety of cost savings,
including:
Hardware savings. Buying, powering, and supporting
fewer servers brings obvious savings. Other potential
hardware cost savings include the need for fewer racks
and network switches: as the number of servers
decreases, these costs decrease as well.
Maintenance and staff savings. A consolidated
infrastructure offers many opportunities to save on
maintenance, support, and staffing. Less hardware and
associated equipment means fewer servers that require
Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and A Principled Technologies configuration guide 9
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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10. security patches, monitoring, and other ongoing
maintenance.
Reduced support costs. The cost of a given level of
support is typically proportional to the size of the
installation. As the number of servers decreases, support
costs are also likely to decrease.
Power and cooling savings. Consolidating servers saves
power and cooling by using fewer, more efficient systems.
Sizing and baseline performance
One key to a successful migration and consolidation is sizing,
the process of gathering different performance baselines so you have
an approximate set of requirements the new hardware platform must
meet. You do this by determining the performance characteristics of
existing hardware during normal business operations, and then
applying growth and scalability estimates.
Among the potential characteristics to examine on each server
are the following:
Processor utilization
Typical and heavy load memory requirements of the
operating system and applications
Disk layout
Database size
Expected database growth
Maximum concurrent users
Types and rates of transactions against the databases
The server you select for consolidation must do more than
match the combined capacity of your current servers. It also must
have enough excess capacity to still perform well at the end of its
expected life span.
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Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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11. The Dell PowerEdge R720 we tested for this guide is a high-
performance server that can readily support significant consolidation.
WE SHOW YOU HOW: PREPARING FOR THE MOVE
Our accompanying reports show from performance and cost
perspectives why you should migrate and consolidate your older
database servers to a single Dell PowerEdge R720 and use new
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V virtualization technologies with the
added benefits of SQL Server 2012. In this guide, we address the next
question: How to accomplish this? We discuss planning issues, setting
up the Dell PowerEdge R720, the actual migration using a simple
backup/restore method, and post-migration considerations.
Evaluating your databases
As with any migration and subsequent consolidation, planning
is a key element. This is especially true when moving to a virtualized
environment. You must be aware of many specific details related to
each physical server you target for migration, including the
maintenance window in which you will migrate the server to its new
environment, the users the move will affect, and the configuration
tasks necessary to assimilate the databases into your consolidated
environment. A more comprehensive example survey appears in
Appendix A. Information to gather before migrating includes the
following:
Windows Server OS version and patch level
SQL Server version and patch level
Number of logins on this SQL Server instance, and what
type of logins these are (Windows or SQL)
Current backup strategy and schedule for the databases
on this server
Replication details for this SQL instance, if any
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Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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12. Detailed information regarding permissions and roles
SQL Server Agent jobs on this SQL Server instance
After moving your databases to their new SQL Server instance,
you must make sure that any system or application using the
database has updated connection information. This includes logins,
permissions, applications, SQL Server Agent jobs, third-party backup
products, and so on.
Gathering baseline performance data
During your research phase, you should use Windows®
Performance Monitor, SQL Server Profiler, and other tools to gather
data on the typical query load and performance statistics on the
databases you are considering moving to the new environment. This
effort serves two purposes. First, it provides a prime opportunity to
identify potential problems before you move to a consolidated
solution. Second, you can use the information you gather to map out
your resource allocation needs, which you can then use to configure
your new virtual machines, either by using different memory
allocations, or by allocating differing numbers of virtual CPUs on the
virtual machines.
Configuring your internal storage
In our test bed, we used only internal storage on the Dell
PowerEdge R720, as this adequately served our scenario and our
upgrade path. The Dell PowerEdge R720 offers up to 24TB of internal
storage, which is likely a huge storage capacity boost for many small
businesses. This section provides an overview of the setup of the
internal storage configuration on the Dell PowerEdge R720. Please
note that we assume you are configuring your server from scratch in
order to customize your RAID configuration as well. For our
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Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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13. consolidation performance testing, we created two virtual drives, a 4-
HDD RAID 10 virtual drive for the host operating system, VM
operating systems, and SQL Server log files, and a 12-HDD RAID 10
virtual drive for the SQL database files.
1. Power on the Dell PowerEdge R720, and press Ctrl+R to enter the
PERC BIOS Configuration Utility when the system prompts you
during boot. Select the internal RAID controller if offered the
choice.
2. Highlight the controller, and press F2 to view your options.
Choose to create a new virtual disk.
3. Select the relevant disks and the RAID level required for your
scenario. Use the Tab key to navigate through the available
options. Highlight OK, and press Enter to complete the virtual disk
creation process.
4. We recommend completely initializing the new volume after
creation. Highlight the volume by pressing F2, choose Full
initialization, and begin the initialization.
5. After the installation completes, press Escape to exit the PERC
BIOS Configuration Utility, and press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to reboot the
system.
Installing Windows Server 2012 and enabling the Hyper-V role
After you configure the internal storage on the Dell
PowerEdge R720, you must install the operating system, in this case,
Windows Server 2012. Prior to enabling the Hyper-V role, you will
need to ensure that Intel Virtualization Technology is enabled on your
server. We installed Windows Server 2012 with all the default
options, as this provides a robust out-of-the-box solution for most
businesses. With the new and improved Server Manager feature, you
can easily add Roles and Features to your installation after the initial
configuration, if necessary. Below, we provide an overview of the
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14. steps required to install the operating system. For detailed steps, see
Appendix B.
1. Insert the Windows Server 2012 DVD media into the DVD drive of
the Dell PowerEdge R720 server.
2. By default, the server will boot to the DVD drive. If not, you can
force the server to boot to the DVD drive by selecting F11 for the
one-time boot option prompt.
3. Choose your language, select your edition, select your drive and
partition options, and click Next to complete the installation (see
Figure 2). The server will reboot during the installation process.
Figure 2: Choosing your edition in the Windows Server 2012 installation.
4. After the operating system installation completes, start the Server
Manager.
5. Open Disk Management and format any additional volumes as
needed.
6. Check for any available Windows updates.
Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and A Principled Technologies configuration guide 14
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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15. 7. Choose to add the Hyper-V role, and allow the installation process
to continue.
Creating your virtual machines
To complete your preparation for your SQL Server installation
in your new virtualized environment, you must finally create virtual
machines on which to run the database software. Here, we provide
an overview of the steps required to create your first virtual machine
using Hyper-V Manager. For detailed steps on this process, see
Appendix C.
1. Launch Server Manager, click Tools, and click Hyper-V Manager.
2. Create a new VM, assigning four virtual processors and 6GB of
RAM, and create a 30GB virtual hard drive for the operating
system to be installed on. Create additional virtual hard drives as
needed. You may vary your resource allocations, such as virtual
processors and RAM amounts, based on your specific needs. See
Figure 3 for an example of the VM properties screen.
3. Insert the Windows Server 2012 installation media, and attach the
physical media to the VM.
4. Start the VM and install Windows Server 2012.
Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and A Principled Technologies configuration guide 15
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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16. Figure 3. Virtual machine configuration in Hyper-V.
Installing SQL Server 2012 on your virtual machines
After you create your virtual machines, install SQL Server 2012
on each VM. It is recommended to deploy SQL Server 2012 to
machines or VMs that are joined to an Active Directory® domain.
When deploying SQL Server in a domain, do not make the SQL Server
service domain accounts members of the Domain Administrators
group; grant only the necessary rights on the local server to the SQL
Server service account as part of your pre-installation planning.
Finally, deploying SQL Server 2012 within a domain greatly simplifies
the transfer process for logins in SQL Server.
Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and A Principled Technologies configuration guide 16
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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17. This section provides an overview of the SQL Server 2012
installation process. Appendix D provides detailed installation
instructions.
1. Insert the SQL Server 2012 DVD into the host machine DVD
drive, mount it to the virtual machine, and log into the VM.
2. On the SQL Server Installation Center screen, choose
Installation in the left pane, and click the link for New SQL
Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing
installation in the right pane (see Figure 4).
Figure 4: SQL Server 2012 Installation Center options.
3. Proceed through the first several installation steps, entering
license information and installing prerequisites with default
options specified. On the Setup Role screen, choose SQL
Server Feature Installation.
4. On the Feature Selection screen, select only what you need
for your particular configuration (see Figure 5). We chose the
Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and A Principled Technologies configuration guide 17
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
servers
18. Database Engine Services, Full-Text and Semantic Extractions
for Search, Client Tools Connectivity, Client Tools Backwards
Compatibility, Management Tools – Basic, and Management
Tools – Complete.
Figure 5: Choosing features for installation.
5. On the first installation, choose to install the default instance.
If you perform subsequent installations on the same server,
choose Named Instance and provide a name for the instance.
6. Configure the credentials of the SQL Server service account
and SQL Server Agent accounts.
7. Specify SQL Server administrators and a password for the
system administrator account, and specify the authentication
mode for your configuration. For our configuration, we
selected Mixed Mode authentication.
8. Complete the installation.
Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and A Principled Technologies configuration guide 18
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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19. WE SHOW YOU HOW: MAKING THE MOVE
Upgrade Advisor makes it easy
The SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Advisor is a major aid in
migration research. This utility, which the SQL Server 2012 setup
wizard includes, scans legacy databases and SQL Server components
for compatibility issues, features, and syntax the newer DBMS does
not support, as well as many other critical components. The utility
lets you view reports quickly in the Upgrade Advisor interface or save
reports for later review.
You can install and execute the Upgrade Advisor on machines
running Windows XP SP2 or greater, Windows Vista® SP1, Windows 7,
Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP2, Windows
Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012. The Microsoft .NETTM
framework is also a requirement.
BEST PRACTICE: Use the Upgrade Advisor tool on your SQL Server
2005 databases and import a trace file to the Upgrade Advisor tool
for analysis. The trace file lets the Upgrade Advisor detect issues that
might not show up in a simple scan of the database, such as TSQL
embedded in applications. Your migration research and planning
must account for such instances. You can capture traces of TSQL using
SQL Server Profiler on your SQL Server 2005 servers during typical
usage hours and analyze these traces using the Upgrade Advisor.
To install the Upgrade Advisor, use the following steps:
1. Insert the SQL Server 2012 DVD. Click the Planning link, and click
Install SQL Server Upgrade Advisor.
2. Click Next to begin the installation wizard, accept the licensing
terms, and click Next.
3. Click Next to accept the default Registration information, click
Next to accept the default installation path, and click Next to
begin the installation.
Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and A Principled Technologies configuration guide 19
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
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20. Once you have installed the SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Advisor,
you can use this software to scan your SQL Server 2005 instances for
potential migration issues. This section provides a brief walkthrough;
Appendix E gives more detailed instructions.
1. Launch the SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Advisor.
2. Click the Launch Upgrade Advisor Analysis Wizard link, and click
Next to begin.
3. Enter the older SQL Server computer name, and click Detect to
have the Upgrade Advisor remotely scan the older SQL Server
machine and detect which components are running on the server.
(See Figure 6.)
Figure 6: Upgrade Advisor component selection.
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21. 4. Choose your instance, provide proper authentication to the older
SQL Server if needed, and select the database you want to
analyze. If necessary, you can also input SQL script files and trace
files here.
5. Following the analysis of your older SQL Server instance, you can
view the Upgrade Advisor report, which lists warnings and errors.
Each warning or error will have associated information to solve
the issue. (See Figure 7.)
Figure 7: Sample Upgrade Advisor output report.
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22. NOTE: If your SQL Server 2005 database uses the Full-Text Search
feature, there are additional considerations you may need to take
when planning your upgrade, as this feature changed beginning with
SQL Server 2008. For more information on this, see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms142490.aspx.
Side-by-side migration
In this section, we provide an overview of the processes
involved in migrating your database from SQL Server 2005 to a
virtualized SQL Server 2012 environment on the Dell PowerEdge
R720. We provide detailed instructions in Appendix F.
We performed all administrative tasks for the SQL Server 2005
and SQL Server 2012 installations using SQL Server Management
Studio, the main administration interface for those versions.
NOTE: Various methods exist for migrating databases between
instances and versions of SQL Server, including detach/attach,
backup/restore, and the copy database wizard. We chose to use the
backup/restore method because most businesses will have a backup
routine in place, and administrators will be familiar with the process.
Moving your SQL Server 2005 database: performing the backup
Using the SQL Server 2005 server, take the following steps to
back up your database. Backup times vary. Again, note that you must
do any special planning in advance to minimize your downtime
window.
1. To keep users from issuing updates during the migration process,
you can either set the database to read-only mode or set the
access property to SINGLE_USER. Both choices immediately sever
all user connections. See Appendix F for details on setting the
database to single-user mode.
2. Perform a full backup of your SQL Server 2005 database, as we did
in Figure 8. See Appendix F for details.
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23. Figure 8: SQL Server 2005 backup configuration.
NOTE: If the time a full backup requires is unacceptable given your
migration maintenance schedule, you can take the full backup at a
previously scheduled time, and at this point of the migration take
only a differential or transaction log backup. If the transaction log size
is small relative to the data file size, this approach can decrease
migration time significantly. If you go this route, be certain to keep
your backup chain intact.
Restoring your database to the SQL Server 2012 virtual machine
On the SQL Server 2012 VM, take the following steps:
1. Open the virtual machine console, and log into the virtual
machine.
2. Open SQL Server Management Studio, connect to the SQL Server
2012 instance, and restore the database. (Restore times vary.) See
Appendix F for details.
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24. NOTE: At this step, you must give your new database the same name
as your SQL Server 2005 database. Changing the name could break
applications that refer to the database by name.
3. While in SQL Server Management Studio, reset the database
access property to multi-user, and set the compatibility level to
SQL 2012 (level 110). See Appendix F for details.
4. Modify application connection strings or change Domain Name
System (DNS) pointers that reference the migrated database.
WE SHOW YOU HOW: AFTER THE MOVE
After you have completed your side-by-side migration, you
typically need to perform some post-migration tasks. Your specific list
of tasks will depend heavily on your pre-migration research and
planning. In this section, we briefly discuss several of the most
common tasks.
Logins and dependencies
Windows and SQL Server logins
As in previous versions of SQL Server, there are two methods
of authenticating to SQL Server 2012: Windows logins and SQL Server
logins. You create and administer Windows logins at either the
operating system level or the Active Directory domain level, and you
can assign those logins’ rights to SQL Server resources. You create and
manage SQL Server logins, however, within SQL Server. The processes
for extracting login information and creating the transferred login
entities on the migration server is very similar for both Windows-
authenticated and SQL Server-authenticated logins. There are a few
extra steps required to ensure a smooth migration for SQL Server
logins.
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25. Below, we describe how to script domain-based Windows-
authenticated logins and SQL Server-authenticated logins to a query
window and recreate them on the new SQL Server 2012 virtual
machine.
Please see Appendix G for details on transferring domain-
based Windows logins and Appendix H for details on transferring SQL
Server logins. For additional information on transferring Windows-
authenticated logins, including more information on SIDs, please visit
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918992.
To transfer logins, take the following steps on the SQL Server
2012 virtual machine. Note that steps 1 through 6 apply to both
Windows logins and SQL Server logins, while Step 7 refers solely to
SQL Server logins.
1. Log into the virtual machine.
2. In SQL Server Management Studio, in the Object Explorer pane,
connect to both your SQL Server 2005 server and your SQL Server
2012 virtual server. Be sure to have the Object Explorer Details
tab open (ViewObject Explorer Details).
3. Expand the tree view of the SQL Server 2005 server, browse to
the Security tab, and click the Logins node. In the Object Explorer
Details, you will now see a list of all logins on the SQL Server 2005
server.
4. If necessary, use the sorting and filtering options in the Object
Explorer Details tab, and take note of which logins you would like
to migrate. Select them by clicking; use the standard Windows
controls (Ctrl key, Shift key, etc.) to select multiple logins.
5. Right-click the logins you selected, and choose Script Login
AsCreate ToNew Query Window. Be sure to change the
connection of this new query window to connect to your new SQL
Server 2012 virtual server by right-clicking and selecting Change
Connection.
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26. 6. Execute the script on your SQL Server 2012 virtual server to create
the logins. If you are transferring Windows-based logins, the
process is complete. If you are transferring SQL Server logins,
continue with Step 7.
7. For SQL Server logins, the script you executed in Step 6 creates
the login, marks it as disabled, and assigns it a random password,
but the script does not map the login to the database user. To
avoid having a database user that is “orphaned” from a login, use
the sp_change_users_login stored procedure, to view orphaned
users and to map a user to a login.
SQL Server Agent jobs
Almost all installations schedule SQL Server Agent jobs that
run against their databases, such as backups, index rebuilds, and
other maintenance items. You must migrate these jobs to your new
SQL Server 2012 virtual machine. Log into the virtual machine, open
SQL Server Management Studio, and connect to your older SQL
Server 2005 server. Locate the jobs you need to migrate in SQL Server
Management Studio (on your SQL Server 2005 server) under the SQL
Server Agent, right-click them, and choose Script Job AsCreate
ToNew Query Window. Connect to the SQL Server 2012 virtual
server, and run the resulting script in a query window. Verify the job
was created successfully in SQL Server Management Studio.
Other external dependencies
Your pre-migration research may well have yielded a list of
items for you to implement now; the list might include references to
local or remote file shares, database mail or SQL Mail configurations,
stored procedures in system databases, and/or linked servers.
Addressing these external dependencies will ensure a smooth finish
to your migration.
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27. SUMMING IT ALL UP
Migrating your legacy servers running Microsoft SQL Server
2005 and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 to a new Dell PowerEdge
R720 running Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and Microsoft Windows
Server 2012 can streamline your infrastructure and deliver savings to
your business.
With careful planning, and by following the straightforward
process that this guide presents, you can realize the benefits of
switching to your new server-and-software solution in no time.
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28. APPENDIX A – EXAMPLE DATABASE SURVEY
In this appendix, we provide an example survey of detailed
information you may want to gather about the SQL Server instances
and databases you are targeting for consolidation. While this survey is
a good starting point, it may not contain every relevant detail for your
particular environment.
1. Hardware level
a. CPU
i. Vendor
ii. Model
iii. Number of cores per socket
b. Memory
i. Total quantity in GB
ii. Memory speed
c. Storage
i. Quantity, both current and projected growth
ii. Disk speed
iii. Repository type (Fibre Channel SAN, iSCSI SAN, SCSI
direct-attached)
iv. Disk interface (SCSI, SAS, etc.)
1. OS level
a. Server name
b. IP address, subnet, etc.
c. Domain information
d. Operating system version, build number, and service pack
e. Drive letter information and layout
2. SQL Server instance level
a. Whether it’s clustered, version, edition (Workgroup,
Standard, Enterprise), 64-bit or 32-bit (and if 32-bit, with
or without AWE), and service pack level
b. Authentication mode (Windows only or Mixed Mode)
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29. c. Instance name (if not a default instance)
d. SQL port number (e.g., is it the default 1433 or another
port? If a named instance, what is the port?)
e. Communication protocol (named pipes or TCP/IP)
f. Service account and all service permission information
(does SQL Server Agent run under a different service
account?)
g. Are there any non-default master or model database
objects?
h. Are there any linked server objects?
i. Are other SQL modules involved or dependent on this
instance (e.g., Analysis Services, Reporting Services, etc.)?
j. Default installation directories, data directories, and log
directories
k. Tempdb – highly volatile? Slightly volatile? Medium usage?
3. Database level
a. Database properties and options
i. Recovery model, auto-shrink, etc.
ii. Files and filegroups (size and location)
b. Backups
i. How many full backups, and on what schedule?
ii. How many differential backups, and on what
schedule?
iii. How many log backups, and on what schedule?
iv. Current backup window?
v. Can backup window shift to accommodate the
consolidated backup window?
c. Other database issues
i. Is this database in a replication configuration?
ii. Is this database a partner in a mirroring session?
iii. Do any SSIS/DTS packages reference this database?
iv. Do any SQL Server Agent jobs reference this
database?
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30. d. Users/Logins
i. Number of users this database affects
ii. Would this database require a login whose name
conflicts with another name on the target
consolidation server? If so, you would need to
create the login and map the database user using
sp_change_users_login
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31. APPENDIX B – INSTALLING WINDOWS AND ENABLING HYPER-V
We installed Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Edition on the
Dell PowerEdge R720 with all default options. You may wish to
perform additional preparation steps as part of your specific
environment, such as standardizing the machine name, enabling
certain firewall ports, and so on.
Installing Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Edition
1. Insert the installation media into the CD/DVD drive, and restart
the server.
2. When the option appears, press F11 to enter the Boot Manager.
3. Select BIOS Boot Menu.
4. Select SATA Optical Drive, and press Enter.
5. Press any key when prompted to boot from DVD.
6. When the installation screen appears, click My language is English
(United States).
7. Leave language, time/currency format and input method as
default, and click Next.
8. Click Install now.
9. When the installation prompts you, enter the product key.
10. Select Windows Server 2012 Datacenter (Server with a GUI), and
click Next.
11. Check I accept the license terms, and click Next.
12. Click Custom: Install Windows only (advanced).
13. Press Alt+A to open advanced partition options. Delete any
partitions until there is only Drive 0 Unallocated Space. If you
created an additional virtual disk for your SQL databases, this will
show up as Drive 1 Unallocated Space.
14. Select Drive 0 Unallocated Space, and click Next, at which point
Windows begins automatically, and restarts automatically after
completing.
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32. 15. When the Settings page appears, fill in the Password and Reenter
Password fields with the same password.
16. Log in with the password you set up previously.
Creating new disks in Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Edition
1. In the Server Manager window, click Tools, and click Computer
Management.
2. In the left pane, click Disk Management.
3. Right-click the shaded area, and click New Simple Volume.
4. On the New Simple Volume Wizard that pops up, click Next.
5. Select a size (maximum, in our case), and click Next.
6. Assign a drive letter, and click Next.
7. Select Format this volume with the following settings, and leave
the default settings. Click Next.
8. Click Finish.
Configuring Windows Update
1. In the left pane of the Server Manager window, click Local Server.
2. In the main frame, next to Windows Update, click Not configured.
3. In the Windows Update window, in the main pane, click Let me
choose my settings.
4. Under Important updates, select Never check for updates (not
recommended), and click OK.
5. In the left pane, click Check for updates, and install all available
updates.
6. Close the Windows Update window.
Adding the Hyper-V role
1. In Server Manager, click ManageAdd Roles and Features.
2. At the Before you begin screen, click Next.
3. At the Select installation type, leave the default selection of Role-
based or feature-based installation, and click Next.
4. At the Select destination server screen, leave the default
selection, and click Next.
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33. 5. At the Select server roles screen, check the box for Hyper-V, and
click Next.
6. When the Add Roles and Features Wizard window pops up, click
Add Features.
7. Click Next.
8. At the Select features screen, click Next.
9. At the Hyper-V screen, click Next.
10. At the Create Virtual Switches screen, select the appropriate NIC,
and click Next.
11. At the Virtual Machine Migration screen, leave the checkbox
unselected, and click Next.
12. At the Default Stores screen, leave the default locations, and click
Next.
13. At the Confirm installation selections screen, check Restart the
destination server automatically if required, and click Install.
14. When the installation completes, click Close.
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34. APPENDIX C – CREATING VIRTUAL MACHINES
We created eight VMs running Windows Server 2012, giving
each VM four logical processors and 6GB RAM. We used the virtual
disk settings in Figure 9 for our test VMs on the Dell PowerEdge R720.
Dell PowerEdge R720 VM virtual
Host volume Size (GB)
disk settings
OS.vhdx C: 30
SQLData.vhdx E: 50
SQLLog.vhdx C: 20
Figure 9: The virtual disk settings we used.
Below, we provide detailed steps on creating your virtual
machines using Hyper-V manager. Note that drive availability and
required number of VHDX files may vary based on your environment.
1. Launch Server Manager, and click ToolsHyper-V Manager.
2. From the Action menu, select NewConnect to Server…
3. In the Select Computer dialog, select Local Computer, and click
OK.
4. From the Action menu, select New Hard Disk.
5. In the New Virtual Hard Disk wizard, click Next.
6. On the Chose Disk Format screen, choose VHDX format, and click
Next.
7. On the Choose Disk Type screen, choose Fixed Size, and click Next.
8. On the Specify Name and Location screen, give the virtual drive a
name, specify its location, and click Next.
9. On the Configure Disk screen, select Create a new blank virtual
hard disk, assign 30GB for size, place the VHD in the appropriate
folder on the server, and click Next.
10. Repeat Step 9 for the remaining VHDs necessary for your VMs. For
flexibility on our SQL Server VMs, we created a separate virtual
hard drive for the OS, a virtual hard drive for SQL Server data, and
a virtual hard drive for SQL Server logs. You may also want to
configure additional virtual hard drives for backup and utility files.
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35. 11. From the Action menu, select NewVirtual Machine.
12. On the Before You Begin page, click Next.
13. On the Specify Name and Location page, enter the name for your
new virtual machine, and click Next.
14. On the Assign Memory page, enter the RAM amount.
15. On the Configure Networking, choose the network assigned to VM
traffic, and click Next.
16. Choose to add a virtual hard disk later.
17. On the Installation Options page, accept the default of Install an
operating system later, and click Next.
18. On the Completing the New Virtual Machine Wizard page, click
Finish.
19. Right-click the virtual machine, and choose Settings.
20. Click Processors, and choose the number of virtual processors. We
chose four virtual processors for our database virtual machines.
21. Click the virtual IDE controller 0.
22. Click Add, and click Hard Drive.
23. Browse to the first VHDX you created in Step 4, and choose that
VHDX for the guest OS VHDX.
24. Click Apply.
25. Click the SCSI controller.
26. Click Add, and click Hard Drive.
27. Browse to the second VHDX you created in Step 10, and choose
that VHDX for the SQL Server data VHDX.
28. Click Apply.
29. Repeat steps 25 through 28 for the remaining SQL Server related
VHDXs.
30. Power on the VM, and proceed to install Windows Server 2012 on
the VM, following the instructions from the above Installing
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 section.
31. After Windows Server 2012 is installed on the VM, use the
following steps to join it to the same Active Directory domain as
the existing SQL Server 2005 server.
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36. a. In Server Manager, click ManageLocal Server.
b. Click WORKGROUP.
c. On the Computer Name tab, click Change.
d. Select Member of Domain and fill in the domain name.
e. Click OK.
f. On the Windows Security screen, enter the user name
and password of the account with which to log into the
domain, and click OK.
g. Click OK to clear Welcome message.
h. Reboot the VM.
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37. APPENDIX D – INSTALLING SQL SERVER 2012
Install an instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 by following
these steps. This installation walkthrough covers only the installation
of the Database Engine and Management Components. For other
components outside the scope of this guide, such as Reporting
Services, Integration Services, or Analysis Services, see Microsoft
documentation at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/bb500395.aspx.
Install an instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 for each VM
by following these steps below.
1. Connect and log into the virtual machine.
2. Insert the installation DVD for SQL Server 2012 into the DVD drive
and attach it to the virtual machine.
3. Click Run SETUP.EXE. If Autoplay does not begin the installation,
navigate to the SQL Server 2012 DVD, and double-click it.
4. In the left pane, click Installation.
5. Click New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to
an existing installation.
6. At the Setup Support Rules screen, wait for the check to
complete. If there are no failures or relevant warnings, click OK.
7. Select the Enter the product key radio button, and enter the
product key. Click Next.
8. Click the checkbox to accept the license terms, and click Next.
9. Click Install to install the setup support files.
10. If there are no failures displayed, click Next.
11. At the Setup Role screen, choose SQL Server Feature Installation.
12. At the Feature Selection screen, select Database Engine Services,
Full-Text and Semantic Extractions for Search, Client Tools
Connectivity, Client Tools Backwards Compatibility, Management
Tools –Basic, and Management Tools – Complete. Click Next.
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38. 13. At the Installation Rules screen, after the check completes, click
Next.
14. At the Instance configuration screen, leave the default selection
of default instance, and click Next.
15. At the Disk space requirements screen, click Next.
16. At the Server Configuration screen, choose NT
ServiceSQLSERVERAGENT for SQL Server Agent, and choose NT
ServiceMSSQLSERVER for SQL Server Database Engine. Click Next.
17. At the Database Engine Configuration screen, select the
authentication method you prefer. For our testing purposes, we
selected Mixed Mode.
18. Enter and confirm a password for the system administrator
account.
19. Click Add Current user. This may take several seconds.
20. Click Next.
21. At the Error and usage reporting screen, click Next.
22. At the Installation Configuration Rules screen, check that there
are no failures or relevant warnings, and click Next.
23. At the Ready to Install screen, click Install.
24. After installation completes, click Close.
25. Close the installation window.
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39. APPENDIX E – INSTALLING UPGRADE ADVISOR
In this appendix, we walk through the steps to install and run
the SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Advisor and save Upgrade Advisor
reports.
1. Insert the SQL Server 2012 DVD to the machine in which you wish
to install the Upgrade Advisor. On the Planning screen, click Install
SQL Server Upgrade Advisor.
2. Click Next to begin the installation wizard, accept the licensing
terms, and click Next.
3. Click Next to accept the default Registration information, click
Next to accept the default installation path, and click Next to
begin the installation.
4. At the Completing the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Upgrade
Advisor screen, click Finish to exit the setup.
5. Start the Upgrade Advisor by selecting Launch the Upgrade
Advisor.
6. Click the Launch Upgrade Advisor Analysis Wizard link.
7. At the Welcome screen, click Next.
8. On the SQL Server Components screen, by default the Upgrade
Advisor populates the server name field with the local computer
name. Replace this with the computer name or IP address of the
SQL Server you want to analyze, and click Detect to allow the
Upgrade Advisor to scan the components on the SQL Server
instance you specified. The Upgrade Advisor automatically selects
the components installed on the legacy server.
9. Click Next.
10. On the Connection Parameters screen, the Upgrade Advisor will
have filled in the necessary information if you are using Windows
authentication. If you are using SQL authentication, you will need
to enter the appropriate credentials. Click Next.
11. On the SQL Server parameters screen, the Upgrade Advisor will
have filled in the necessary information. Click Next.
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40. 12. On the Confirm Upgrade Advisor Settings screen, review your
choices, and click Run.
13. When the analysis completes, click Launch Report to view the
analysis report.
14. You can now use the drop-down filter tools to view report items
by component or by issue severity.
NOTE: If you want to export the report, click Export Report in the
lower right corner of the Upgrade Advisor interface.
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41. APPENDIX F – MIGRATING DATABASES
In this appendix, we give detailed instructions about a basic
side-by-side migration of a user database from a SQL Server 2005
server to a SQL Server 2012 VM. There are multiple methods of
accomplishing this task, including using TSQL commands and
automated tools. Here, we discuss performing the database migration
using the graphical interface tools Microsoft provides with SQL Server
2005 and SQL Server 2012.
Backing up a SQL Server 2005 database
1. Log into Windows on the SQL Server 2005 server as either an
administrative user or a user with full rights on SQL Server 2005.
2. Start SQL Server Management Studio by selecting StartAll
ProgramsMicrosoft SQL Server 2005SQL Server Management
Studio.
3. Enter your server name, and select Windows Authentication.
4. Set the database to single-user mode to ensure no updates occur.
NOTE: Setting the database to single-user mode immediately
disconnects all users, causing them to lose any work in progress. You
must notify your users well in advance of setting the database to
single-user mode.
5. To set the database to single-user mode, in Object Explorer, right-
click the database, and choose Properties.
6. Click Options, and scroll to the State section.
7. For the Restrict Access setting, choose SINGLE_USER, and click OK.
Click Yes when prompted that other connections will be cut off.
8. Right-click the database, and choose Tasks, Back Up.
9. Click Add… to add a backup device, and click the “…” button to
browse to the backup location you want to use. Select a folder,
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42. and enter a filename, such as
DatabaseNameMigrationBackup.bak.
10. Click OK to close the Backup Device Location window, and click OK
to close the Select Backup Destination window.
NOTE: To simplify moving the database later, we recommend creating
the backup in a shared local folder.
11. Optionally, on the Options tab, select the checkbox to verify your
database backup upon completion.
NOTE: This option increases backup time but checks the integrity of
the backup file. We chose to verify the backup.
12. Click OK to begin the SQL Server 2005 database backup. (Backup
times vary with database size and backup device configuration.)
13. To clear the completion message, click OK.
14. After the backup completes, in SQL Server Management Studio,
under Databases, right-click the database, and choose
TasksTake Offline.
15. To clear the confirmation message, click Close. The old database is
now offline, so SQL Server 2005 will not allow any connections to
it.
16. Log out of Windows on the SQL Server 2005 server.
Restoring a database to SQL Server 2012
1. Transfer your SQL Server 2005 database backup file to the virtual
machine.
2. Log into Windows on the SQL Server 2012 VM.
3. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the backup folder location.
4. Launch SQL Server Management Studio.
5. Select Database Engine for Server type, and type the server name
in Server name. For Authentication, we used Windows
Authentication.
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43. 6. In the Object Explorer pane, right-click Databases, and select
Restore Database.
7. For the Source, select Device, and click the “...” button.
8. In the Select backup devices section, select File for the backup
media type.
9. Click Add, and enter the full path to the database backup.
10. Click OK.
11. SQL Server will fill in the information in the To section of the
Restore Database screen.
NOTE: It is critical to have the same database name as on your SQL
Server 2005 server. If the database name does not match,
applications that depend on the database name may break.
12. To return to the Restore Database window, click OK.
13. Select the checkbox that now appears in the Restore column.
Optionally, click Options on the left, and ensure the file locations
are appropriate in the Restore As column.
NOTE: In your new virtual machine, your storage layout may differ
significantly from your older physical machine. Modify the file layout
on the Options screen as necessary.
14. To begin the restore, click OK. Note the progress indicator in the
upper right of the Restore window. (Restore time varies with
database size and server and with disk subsystem speed.)
15. Click OK to clear the confirmation message.
16. After the restore is complete, you must change the database
access state back to multi-user and upgrade the compatibility
level by performing the following steps:
a. Right-click the database in Object Explorer, and select
Properties.
b. On the left side to access database options, click Options.
c. Change Compatibility level to SQL Server 2012 (110).
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44. d. Scroll down to Restrict Access, and change to
MULTI_USER.
e. Click OK.
f. Click Yes to agree to shutting down other connections.
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45. APPENDIX G – TRANSFERRING WINDOWS LOGINS
In this appendix, we provide detailed instructions for
transferring Windows-based logins from SQL Server 2005 machine to
SQL Server 2012 in an Active Directory environment.
1. On the virtual machine running SQL Server 2012, launch SQL
Server Management Studio.
2. On the Connect to Server screen, select Database Engine for the
server type, enter the computer name of the legacy server, and
click Connect.
3. Select ViewObject Explorer Details, to bring up the Object
Explorer Details tab.
4. In the Object Explorer pane, expand the Security folder, and
highlight the Logins folder.
5. To add the Login Type column to the display, right-click the
column-header area in the Object Explorer Details pane and select
Login Type. Now Windows Logins appear as Login Type 0.
Optionally, use the column headers to sort by Default Database,
or use the filter button to find only logins that you are interested
in migrating.
6. Using the standard Windows multi-select key combinations (Ctrl
key or Shift key), highlight the logins you are interested in
migrating.
7. Right-click the highlighted logins, and select Script Login
asCreate ToNew Query Editor Window.
8. Click the Change Connection button on the SQL Editor toolbar and
select the new instance of SQL.
9. To run the resulting script, click Execute.
Migrating to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and A Principled Technologies configuration guide 45
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 on Dell PowerEdge R720
servers