This document discusses best practices for virtualizing SQL Server. It outlines the advantages of virtualization like high availability and flexibility. It covers licensing considerations for virtual SQL, as well as VM configuration guidelines for optimizing performance. Backup strategies that support full recovery are recommended. The document also discusses clustering and high availability options like vSphere HA and SQL AlwaysOn clustering to provide redundancy. Key takeaways are to use templates for VM configuration, obtain vCenter access, and to scale resources as needed rather than overprovisioning.

1. Virtualizing SQL
How to implement on virtual
infrastructure to maximize
performance and HA

2. Agenda
• Advantages of virtualization
• Licensing considerations
• VM Configuration
• Backups
• Clustering & HA

3. The Way Virtualization Used to Be
• Old drawbacks
– Storage was slow
– Compute was not sufficient
– Too expensive
– Wasn’t supported

4. The Way Virtualization Looks Today
• New strengths
– SQL apps are moving to Virtual
– Virtual Infrastructure is now on-par!
– Fear, Doubt, Uncertainty (FUD) remains
– Advantages over physical

5. Advantages of Virtualized SQL
• High Availability
• Snapshots
• Flexibility
• Portability

6. Multi-Vendor Virtualization Today
• Storage is blazing fast and large
• Compute has scaled up!
• Cost – consolidation is now a winner

7. The Golden Rule
Designs are essentially the same
• CPU
• RAM
• Storage
• Network

8. When is it not a good idea to
Virtualize?
• Vendor support
• Ultra-low latency requirements
• ETL that runs at MAX CPU for hours

9. Licensing
• Individual VM licensing
– Core license model
– Server/CAL licensing

10. Licensing
• License mobility
– SA for vMotion
• Dense virtualization
licensing
– License the
hardware

11. VM Configuration
• TEMPLATE is the means to win!
• Collaborate: DBA’s & VM Admins
• Provision new SQL server in an hour

12. VM Configuration
• SQL and OS Memory tweaks
– Lock Pages in Memory
– SQL Max Memory
• VM Memory Reservation
– Critical if using Lock Pages
– Legit use of reservations

13. VM Configuration
• SQL CPU tweaks
– MDOP
– Split TempDB
• VM CPU tweaks
– Single vCPU to start
– Multi-core vs multi-socket vCPU

14. VM Configuration
• VM Networking
– VMXNET3 (or Flexible)
• Storage considerations
– Block Based - FC / FCoE & iSCSI
– NAS - NFS

15. VM Configuration
• Fibre Channel – similar to
railways
• iSCSI – similar to highways

16. VM Configuration - Storage
• RDM vs VMDK
• VM SCSI controllers
• Paravirtualized SCSI controllers
• VMDK - Eager Zeroed Thick
• PCIe SSD cards

17. VM Configuration

18. Backup Strategy
• Must choose an approach for Full Recovery Mode!
– Traditional
– Hypervisor based
– Hybrid
• Manage transaction logs

19. Clustering and HA
• Traditional clustering
• vSphere HA = free clustering
• SQL Always-On clustering
–Best of both worlds!
–Up to 8 secondary copies in 2014 including
native Azure integration

20. Clustering and HA

21. Clustering and HA
• Site Recovery Manager (SRM)
– Automated Disaster Recovery
– Not SQL specific
– BUT Recovery Plans will depend on SQL VMs

22. Summary
• Virtualization benefits
• Licensing
• Configuration and Optimizations
• Backup Strategies
• Clustering & HA

23. Questions and Answers?

24. Take-away’s for the DBA’s
• Use a TEMPLATE!!
• vCenter access
– Even if it’s just read-only
• More <> better
– Grow as you need it

25. Links
• Always-On Failover Demonstration – Kyle Quinby, Varrow
• MS KB 920093 - Tuning options for SQL Server when running in high
performance workloads
• MS SQL 2012 license guide for virtualization
• VMw KB 1037959 - Microsoft Clustering on VMware vSphere: Guidelines
for Supported Configurations
• VMware's SQL Server Best Practices Guide
• When to use Lock Pages in Memory with SQL Server
• How to Enable the Lock Pages in Memory Option
• VMware - 1 Million IOPS on 1 VM
• VMw KB 1010398 - Configuring disks to use VMware Paravirtual SCSI
(PVSCSI) adapters
• VMw KB 1022242 - Types of supported Virtual Disks on ESX/ESXi hosts