There are many ways to reduce costs in IT. Consolidation is one of these ways. Many IT managers thinking only about virtualization when consider consolidation. Multi-instancing is very legitimate and effective way too. Managers and DBAs have to understand benefits and pitfalls, difference from virtualization. Presentation is unveiling real-world practice and experience of support of over 70 servers with at least 6 instances on each with over 2500 databases. This presentation can be helpful for infrastructure managers, system architects, and DBAs .

1. MS SQL Server: Multiple Instances Consolidation Practices Alexander Prusakov Senior MS SQL Server DBA May, 2010

2. Sr. MS SQL Server DBA (consultant) in one of the biggest financial institution in the world 20+ years of IT experience (business users, ERPs, databases and applications support, software development, data warehousing, etc.) 15+ years of experience with MS SQL Server MBA, MCITP: Database Administrator 2005/2008 Industries: banking/finance, energy, education, health care, manufacturing, IT consulting. Speaker’s Background:

3. Why; How; What to expect and how it works; Summary; Q and A. Agenda:

4. Terms Consolidation refers to the merger from multiple computer sources into single. Virtualization refers to the abstraction of computer resources. Multi-instancing refers to the utilization of the same computer sources by multiple independent SQL Servers

5. Dedicated service

6. Dedicated service

7. Multi-instancing Virtualization

8. Multi-instancing Virtualization

9. Unexpected need in new SQL Server without budget for a hardware; Buzz about virtualization; Enterprise environment; Curiosity; How did I step in:

10. Reduce hardware cost Reduce pollution (carbon footprint) Reduce labor/support cost Increase resources utilization Look nice in other’s eyes Why to consolidate:

11. Reduce hardware cost: Actually it might not (MSRP pre-configured estimated): Enterprise level server: 16 sockets, 196GB (16P) about $175,000.00; HP ProLiant DL785G5 8380 -128GB (8P) $34,999.00; HP ProLiant DL380G6 E5504-4GB (1P) $ 2,289.00 x 8 = $ 18,312.00; $ 2,289.00 x 16 = $ 36,624.00;

12. Real Benefits: Space: 2U x 8 = 16U vs. 7U Power: 460x8 = 3,680 vs. 1,300 W Cooling cost: vary Reduced carbon footprint (including manufacturing and usage) Ability to add physical CPUs and/or memory

13. Reduce support cost: Cost of annual licensing; OS – 1 to 8; SQL Server: 8 x 5,999.00 = 47,992.00 8 x 24,999.00 = 199,992.00 Load performance improvement; Cost of SysAdmin support(1 vs. 8); Cost of DBA time (patch 1 vs. 8); Cost of real estate and other

14. Extras bonus from Enterprise version: Data compression; Resource governor; Table partitioning; Hot-add CPU and memory; Policy-based management; Data collector; etc.

15. Total workload throughput on the system versus total number of databases. http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/ServerConsolidation1.doc

16. Workload throughput on each database versus the number of databases on the system http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/ServerConsolidation1.doc

17. Effective memory for procedure cache in different configurations http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/ServerConsolidation1.doc

18. Increase resource utilization: Ability to re-distribute CPUs and memory between instances; Parallel processing (especially beneficial in non-business hours); Now you look GREAT! Or may be not

19. Multi-instancing vs Virtualization

20. Multi-instancing vs Virtualization

21. Multi-instancing vs Virtualization * http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768536(BTS.10).aspx

22. How: Install multiple instances; Create multiple TempDBs; Limit CPUs and memory per instance; Leave enough memory for OS; Monitor performance; Test performance before move to production; Know your IO system; Set up thresholds;

25. What is useful: Microsoft Performance Dashboard; Quest Foglight software; Good DBA; What is not that much: Single Instance Reports; Profiler; Sysadmins.

26. Usefulness:

27. And NOT:

28. But can be better:

29. Steady but needs a lot of patience from DBA; Business has to follow rules; Adds extra work to manage and keep records on DBs; Harder tune performance; Higher cost of error (including planning). How it works :

30. How: SQL Server Engines for users are separated on different instances; SSAS and SSRS are separated from database engines; Each instance is used by databases of one business unit; Application has no elevated rights on any shared server; Have a big boss on your side!

31. Push back from development team on: CPU utilization; IO utilization (IOPS); Database schema optimization; Query tuning; What to expect:

32. Push back from business: DBA has to be involved; One instance down – all business units might be down; IT cost saving <> business cost; Is there a shortcut?; What to expect:

33. Unexpected errors; A lot of work to build monitoring and administration tools; Fun, fun, a lot of fun What to expect:

34. Bigger the farm – better savings; Bigger the farm – bigger the headache; Not that scary if design and implementation has been done carefully. Summary:

35. Internet – find your way, do it yourself Microsoft –excellent documentation, big community. For example: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee819082.aspx Hardware Manufactures –hard to find the truth Consultants –result may be vary Where to look for more:

36. Slides can be found on: http://indiana.sqlpass.org/Default.aspx?tabid=2742 Email: a_prusakov@yahoo.com Questions & Open Discussion Thank You!