VMworld 2013: Virtualizing Databases: Doing IT Right

Virtualizing Databases: Doing IT Right

Michael Corey, Ntirety, Inc

Jeff Szastak, VMware

VAPP4724

#VAPP4724

Jeff Szastak

Jeff Szastak

MSIA, CISSP, VCP, MCSE, etc.

Staff Systems Engineer – Enterprise Healthcare

VMware, Inc.

Microsoft Exchange & SQL virtualization BC/DR SME

@szastak

Blog contributor: blogs.vmware.com/apps

www.virtualinsanity.com

Michael J Corey, Founder & CEO

Oracle Press Books Include:

Oracle 11g A Beginner’s Guide

Oracle 10g A Beginner’s Guide

Oracle 9i - A Beginner's Guide

Oracle8i - Data Warehousing

Oracle8i - A Beginner's Guide

Oracle8 - Data Warehousing

Oracle8 – Tuning

Oracle8 - A Beginner's Guide

Oracle - Data Warehousing

Oracle - A Beginner's Guide

Tuning Oracle- 81-3; 1994)

Key Past/Current Affiliations: Past President of the IOUG

Founding Board IOUG Virtualization SIG

Past Member IOUG Board of Directors

Past Director of Education IOUG

Founder Professional Association of SQL Server

Talkin’Cloud Top 200 Channel Partner Experts Cloud

Past Member Microsoft Data Warehouse Council

Past Member Oracle Educational Advisory Council

Past Director of Conferences IOUG Alive

Executive Board Massachusetts Robert H. Goddard

Council on Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics

Started Working with Oracle Version 3.0 Beta Tested Oracle 5,6,6.2,7,8.X,9.X.…. Presented on Technology & Business Topics from Brazil to Australia Worked

with Oracle on UNIX, Linux, Windows, MVS,VM, VMS,..

Michael Webster

Shameless Plug

<Your Name Here>

DataTone – The New World Order

Why Customers Are Virtualizing

Databases (Business Critical Applications)

VMware

Concise Set

Very

Efficient

Drivers

Focused

Driver Set

Well

Vetted O/S

Hardware Resource O/S

Du Jour

Many

Drivers

Many

Versions

New

Driver’s

Can Cause

Issues

Why Your Company Cares: Virtualization is Strategic

1:1 relationship between applications and hardware

Relevant cost metric = cost per server

• 8% - 12% Utilization is typical

Many:1 relationship between applications and hardware

Relevant cost metric = cost per application

• 60 - 80% Utilization: is typical

• 60% reduction in CapEx

• 30% reduction in OpEx

• 80% reduction in Energy

Physical World

1 :1

Virtual World

Many :1

The New

Norm

“Can You Say Right-Sizing”

Memory Hot Add / CPU Hot Plug

Reduction in CPU Utilization

Increased processing rate

Adding Memory

Oracle – Hot Plug vCPU

Oracle - Hot Add Memory Oracle database memory parameters are defined at

instance startup. You will have to restart the database to

take advantage of added memory.

Unless you have set SGA_MAX_SIZE To big

Typically…

SGA_TARGET_SIZE = (+-) SGA_MAX_SIZE

or could be wasting memory

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/sol

utions/oracle/Oracle_Databases_VM

ware_Workload_Characterization_St

udy.pdf

1St Time Goal of Consistency Standardization

Can Be Achieved

“Any Resource, Any Server, At Any Time” in the (Pool)

The 10

Millionth Model

T was

produced on

June 4, 1927

Trigger Points When to Virtualize

Architecting for Performance: The Right Hypervisor

New Features in 5.5 62 TB VMDK files Support for Reliable Memory Hot pluggable SSD PCIe devices Windows Failover Clustering (MSCS)

• Support for Windows 2012 Clustering • Round Robin path policy for shared storage • iSCSI protocol for shared storage (5 Node) • FCoE protocol for shared storage (5 Node)

• vSphere App HA Policies VMFS Heap Improvements vSphere Flash Read Cache vSAN for Test / Dev

VMware.com What’s New in vSphere 5.5

Is your database to “Big” to Virtualize?

Very Large ERP System

• 75+ application tiers – VMware/RHEL

• 8 TB database; 8.8 billion rows of data

• 52 million transactions per day

• 79K IOPS

• 40K blocks per second interconnect traffic

• 40,000+ named users

• 4,000+ peak concurrent users

Source EMC

“Yes This is Virtualized”

Performance Test Environment (topology) VMware vSphere 5.1

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.3

Oracle 11gR2 (11.2.0.3) Single Instance and RAC

3PAR StoreServ 10400

192 x 15K RPM Fibre Channel Disks

32 x 150K RPM Solid State Disk (SSD)

ProLiant DL580 G7 (client)

Intel® Xeon® CPU X7560 @ 2.26 GHz (8 cores)

128GB memory

ProLiant BL660c Gen8 - 4 sockets / 24 cores

(database server)

Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-4610 @ 2.40 GHz (6 cores)

64GB memory

HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric 10Gb/24-Port

Module

“Recent “HP” Performance Study – Choose Your Vendor DU-JOUR

Workload Characteristics

• OLTP type of workload with a read write ratio of 2:1

• Oracle Database size of 600GB

• workload is an implementation of an online store

• The driver program simulates users logging in, browsing

for products by title, or category, adding selected products

to their shopping cart, and then purchasing those products

Performance Results

• Virtualization has ~5% overhead as

compared to native

• The database tps on a virtual

machine is 5% less than that on the

physical machine.

• 2P represents 12 cores and 4P

represents 24 cores

• For 100 users the delta is ~6% and

that increases up to ~10% for 1700

users.

• When the system gets busier,

native starts to have a slightly

larger advantage over

virtualization.

Performance Results (contd)

• For both virtual and native, by

moving from 2P (12 cores) to 4P (24

cores)

- The database tps increases by

40% to 50%

- The CPU utilization drops from

80% to 60%

• For RAC , by moving from 2P (12

cores) to 4P (24 cores)

- The database tps increases by

40% to 60%

- The CPU utilization drops from

75% to 60%

“Who Architects a Database With Less than 5% Overhead -

One Busy Day Your Done”

Virtualizing Databases: Doing IT Right

Lessons Learned Tier-1

VIP: What Works in Tier-2 (non-production), will not always work with Tier-1 (production)”

Doing It Right 1st Time: Very Conservative

Designed to Insure You Avoid Common Traps & Pitfalls Associated with Production Databases

being Virtualized

Starting Out Right

Doing It Right: Read Best Practices Guides

Read The Documentation

From All Your Vendors……

VMware, Microsoft, Storage

Vendor, Network Vendor….

Appendix of this deck

Professional Association of SQL Server

http://virtualization.sqlpass.org/

“Take Advantage of All resources Available to You”

IOUG Cloud Computing SIG - Oracle

Meetup Groups – MYSQL

http://longwhiteclouds.com/

Most Up To Date Information

Installation

• Plan your SQL Server installation

SLAs, RPOs, RTOs

Baseline current workload, at least 1 business cycle

Baseline existing (workload) vSphere implementation

Estimated growth rates

I/O requirements (I/O per sec, throughput, latency)

Storage (Disk type/speed, RAID, flash cache solution, etc)

Software versions (vSphere, Windows, SQL)

Product Keys

Licensing (may determine architecture)

Workload type (OLTP, Batch, Warehouse)

Accounts needed for installation / service accounts

High Availability strategy

Backup & Recovery strategy

“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time” – Zig Ziglar

Planning a High Availability Strategy

Requirements • Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

• What does 99.99% availability really mean?

• Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

• Zero data lost?

• HA vs. DR requirements

Evaluating a technology • What’s the cost for implementing the technology?

• What’s the complexity of implementing, and managing the technology?

• What’s the downtime potential?

• What’s the data loss exposure?

Availability % Downtime / Year Downtime / Month * Downtime / week

"Two Nines" - 99% 3.65 Days 7.2 Hours 1.69 Hours

"Three Nines" - 99.9% 8.76 Hours 43.2 Minutes 10.1 Minutes

"Four Nines" - 99.99% 52.56 Minutes 4.32 Minutes 1.01 Minutes

"Five Nines" - 99.999% 5.26 Minutes 25.9 Seconds 6.06 Seconds

* Using a 30 day month

Baseline, Baseline, Baseline

Warning, Warning Warning : If Your physical environment does not perform well…….

Why will making it Virtual make it perform better? IF so how?

• New Hardware, Faster CPU, Faster Drives

What to Baseline – IT Food Groups

Existing Physical Database Infrastructure

Existing/Proposed vSphere Infrastructure

Network Memory

Disk CPU

When You Base Line a database

Make Sure The Sample Interval Is frequent

CPU, Memory, Disk (15 Seconds or less)

SQL Server TSQL (1 Minute)

“A Lot can

happen in a

short amount

of time”

Oracle 12c Cloud Control/DB Express

The Default thresholds for alerting in Cloud Control

12c good starting point

Migrations - The Bigger Picture

Database As A Service – Road Map

Multiple Tier Approach

• Different levels for different DB placement

• Basic and Premium • Basic = Low utilization, test / dev DBs

• Premium = Moderate to High utilization, production, high visibility

• Different underlying hardware

• Different SLAs, RTO, RPOs and HA between tiers

Center of Excellence

• Assist with migrations, net new DBs and Capacity Management

• Communication, no “throwing it over the wall”

• VMware, SAN, Network, DB teams to discuss DB migrations • Optional Teams: Security, Procurement

Understand Workload Resource Requirements

Basic performance characteristics (CPU, memory, IO, Network) • Daily average resource usage

• Daily peak resource usage

• Daily peak hours

• Month-end, quarter-end, year-end peaks

Monitoring Tools • Windows Perfmon

• Processor(*) %Processor Time

• Process(sqlservr) %Processor Time

• SQLServer:Memory Manager Total Server Memory (KB)

• PhysicalDisk(*) Disk Reads/Sec, Disk Writes/Sec

• PhysicalDisk(*) Disk Reads Bytes/Sec, Disk Write Bytes/Sec

• Network Interface(*) Bytes Received/Sec, Bytes Sent/Sec

vSphere Environment

SQL Server Baseline

These are suggested values - work with

your DBAs to determine their KPIs

SQL Server Perfmon Counters

These are suggested values - work with your DBAs to determine their KPIs

SQL Profiler Counters

These are suggested values - work

with your DBAs to determine their

KPIs

Migration – Baseline: Physical (disk) Pre

LogicalDisk\Avg Disk sec/Read read latency

LogicalDisk\Avg Disk sec/Write write latency

LogicalDisk\Disk Read Bytes /sec Read throughput

LogicalDisk\Disk Write Bytes /sec Write throughput

LogicalDisk\Disk Reads/sec Read IOPS

LogicalDisk\Disk Writes/sec Write IOPS

LogicalDisk\Disk Transfers/sec Combined IOPS

Migration – Baseline: Virtual (disk) Post

Export output Excel, and

graphed using a variety of

tools, such as Jonathan

Kehayias’ Powershell script.

Compare the results against

the required IOPS as

measured in the pre-

deployment assessment.

Determine IOPS & Throughput ORION (Part of 11.2 now) sudo -u root ./orion_linux_x86-64 -run advanced -testname traxpoc -num_disks 20 -cache_size 8000 -duration 240 -matrix basic SLOB (Silly Little Oracle Benchmark) Calibrate I/O – Native to Oracle starting in 11.1 SQL> declare 2 l_latency integer; 3 l_iops integer; 4 l_mbps integer; 5 begin 6 dbms_resource_manager.calibrate_io 7 (5,10,l_iops,l_mbps,l_latency); 8 dbms_output.put_line ('max_iops = '||l_iops); 9 dbms_output.put_line (’latency = '||l_latency); 10 dbms_output.put_line ('max_mbps = '||l_mbps); 11 end; 12 / max_iops = 5348 latency = 10 max_mbps = 641

Other Free Tools: • Swingbench • TPC Benchmark • Custom scripts How do you know for sure? Oracle’s - $$$: Database Replay

Oracle Calibrate I/O Tip

Don’t keep it a Secret • DBA’s – tell vSphere, Storage, and Network Admins your

needs

– Storage: (IOPS / throughput)

– CPU: (MHz)

– Memory: (Total GB)

– Network: Bandwidth

– Features (i.e.: Windows clustering)

– Anticipated Growth Rates

– Anticipated Activity

– Other

“They Flunked Mind Reading”

Before You Install A Database

• Do basic throughput testing of the IO subsystem prior to deploying a Database

• Tools you can use

– SQLIO/IOMETER

– Slob…..

“Check It Before You Wreck it” -- Jeff Szastak

Should You PV (Via Converter)

Production Environment’s Build “New” From Scratch – GI/GO

SQL Server - Unattended Installation Options

VMware vCAC + App Director

Command Line

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms144259

Configuration File

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd239405

Sysprep

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee210664

• FYI – Available as of SQL Server 2008 R2

ORACLE- Unattended Installation Options

You At the VMworld

Party While your

Database is

Provisioned

VMware vCAC + App Director

DBCA Silent Install

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e24321/app_nonint.htm#CIHHFDGG

RAC Silent Install

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e24660/cripts.htm#RILIN1119

Phone-A-Friend

VMware has stated that it will take the ______support call if a customer calls ______ Support and ______ Support is being

difficult because the customer is running on VMware.

• Hint…….

“TSANET.ORG--- Hardware or Software”

Use SQL Server/Oracle recommended installation guidelines for respective

operating system – same as physical !

Physical World 1 :1 Virtual World

Many

:1

Same As Physical

If your OS and database don’t know they are virtualized do you need to tell them?

Did You Hear That?

Architecting For Performance: Design

OLTP

Large amount of small queries

Sustained CPU utilization during working hours

Sensitive to peak contentions (slow downs affects SLA)

Generally Write intensive

May generate many chatty network round trips

Typically runs during off-peak hours, low CPU utilization

during the normal working hours

Can withstand peak contention, but sustain activity is key

Batch / ETL

Database Workloads Types

DSS

Small amount of large queries

CPU, memory, disk IO intensive

Peaks during month end, quarter end, year end

Can benefit from inter-query parallelism with large number of

threads

OLTP vs. Batch Workloads

What this says: • Average 15% Utilization

• Moderate sustained activity (around 28% during working hours 8am-6pm)

• Minimum activities during non working hours

• Peak utilization of 58%

What this says: • Average 15% Utilization

• Very quiet during the working day (less than 8% utilization)

• Heavy activity during 1am-4am, with avg. 73%, and peak 95%

Batch Workload (avg. 15%)

OLTP Workload (avg. 15%)

OLTP vs. Batch Workloads

What This Means • Better Server Utilization

• Improved Consolidation Ratios

• Less Equipment To Patch, Service, Etc

• Saves Money/Less Licensing

OLTP/Batch Combined Workload

“Many Tier-2 were built for

capacity not performance”

Separate development, test from

production environments into different

host clusters in the beginning !

Where?/What Year Was The

First Documented Use Of The

Word “Nerd” ?

The Year Was 1950

More VMs vs. More DB Instances

More VMs • Better resource isolation

• Better security, patch management

• Better Performance

• Less Risk

Fewer VMs (More instances) • Less expensive in some licensing models

• No OS isolation (configuration, security, fault)

• No resource isolation

• Less Segmentation (HIPPA, PCI,…..)

Note: Both Work, Both Valid Strategies

General Rule of Thumbs • Resource utilization is the basics, but not all

• Consider business, security, management, and other requirements

• Consider workload characteristics • OLTP workloads can be stacked up to a sustained utilization level

• OLTP workloads that are high usage during day time, and batch

workloads that run during off-peak hours mixed well together • Batch/ETL workloads with different peak periods share well together

• Consider operational history, e.g. month end, quarter end • Additional VMs may be added to handle peak period during month end,

quarter end, and year end if scale out is a possibility

• CPU, memory hot-add may be used to handle the peak workload

• Reduce VM density, or add more hosts to the cluster

Architecting For Performance: Storage

Storage

• The fundamental relationship between consumption and supply has not changed

• Spindle count and RAID configuration still rules

• host demand is an aggregate of VMs

• Factors that affect storage performance • storage protocols

• storage configuration

• VMFS configuration (Separate LUN’s, All on one LUN, Does it even matter?)

VMFS

More I/O In Flight to the Array

Use VMFS vs. RDM • VMFS Advantages

– Negligible performance cost and superior functionality

– Ability to take full advantage of future functionality enhancements (Future Awesomeness)

• Align VMFS on 64K boundaries

– Automatic with vCenter

– www.vmware.com/pdf/esx3_partition_align.pdf

• With vSphere 4.1

– Use VAAI (Storage API)*

• With vSphere 5.x

– Use VASA (Storage API)*

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

4K IO 16K IO 64K IO

VMFS

RDM (virtual)

RDM(physical)

IOP

S

VMFS Scalability

* Work With Storage Vendor For Details

Thin Provisioning Perf / Block Zeroing

MBs I/O Throughput

USE use Thick Eager Zerod Disk for

best performance

Maximum Performance happens eventually,

but when using lazy zeroing, zeroing needs

to occur before you can get maximum

performance

At minimum Databases, LOGS, TEMPDB

Check with Storage Vendor to see how they

handle Thin Provisioning. Your Mileage may

vary

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsp_4_thinprov_perf.pdf

Database Thick Provision Eager Zeroed Options

Inflation

Storage vMotion

Windows

vmkfstools

- VMware KB 1011170

- vmkfstools –D “My VM.vmdk

- Eager or zeroedthick

- vmkfstools –k “My VM.vmdk

- converts to eager Zeroed

Optimizations – SQL Server: Disk

Disk

• Instant file initialization – add SQL Server service account to PERFORM VOLUME MAINTAINCE TASK under User Rights Assignment in Local Policies of Server’s settings.

• By default, every time the database file needs to grow, OS will zero fill this file & block writes until complete

• Adding requires a restart of the SQL Service,

• removal requires a reboot

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175935(v=SQL.105).aspx

SQL Server: System Databases

Tempdb • Depending on workload, consider creating multiple tempdb files

• Microsoft recommends 1 datafile per CPU

• Isolate tempdb from database and logs, and consider dedicated vSCSI adapter

• Verify via testing

http://technet.microsoft.com/library/Cc966534

Oracle - No

Datafile to CPU

relationship

Storage Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) adapters

PVSCSI adapters are high-performance storage adapters that can result in greater throughput and lower CPU utilization.

• Up to 30% CPU Savings

• Up to 12% I/O Improvement

Paravirtual Adapter Knows Its Virtual

* Very Important to Use Most Current Version

PVSCSI adapters are best suited for environments, especially SAN environments, where hardware or applications drive a very high amount

of I/O throughput.

PVSCSI adapters are not suited for DAS

(Direct Attached Storage) environments.

Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) Storage Adapters

Always Check Storage Vendors Best Practices

“>80% of the issues

in a virtualized

Environment have

to do with Storage

misconfigurations”

Storage – Putting It All Together

• Work with storage engineer, deliver realistic requirements early in the cycle

• Size for performance, not capacity • Large number of small drives, not small number of large drives

• More / faster spindles are better for performance

• Understand the I/O requirements of different workloads • Transactional data vs. log vs. backup

• OLTP vs. DSS

“Golden Rule: Capacity Versus Performance”

Storage – Putting It All Together

•Understand the path to the drives, i.e. throughput, multi-pathing

•Use eagerzeroedthick disk provisioning to avoid lazy zeroing

• Place swap file on separate dedicated drive on SAN, mitigate the impact of swapping with EFD (for high performance workload)

• Can potentially slow down vMotions

• Follow SQL Server storage best practices

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc966534.aspx

Work with your SAN Vendor as well, they have Best Practices for running these workloads on your array

The Bottom Line

“>80% of performance

problems with

virtualization occur at

the storage layer”

Now that you know, don’t

let it happen to YOU

Architecting For Performance: Processor

vCPU’s – Hyper-Threading

hyper-threading processor to appear as two

"logical" processors to the host operating system

vCPU’s

• With Databases Avoid Over Commitment of Processor Resources till have “actionable” performance data you can scale (vCOPs)

• 1-1 Ratio Physical Cores to vCPU’s • Out of the gate !

Hyper-Threaded CPU != Full vCPU

Hardware Generation Matters

• Use the latest processors

• Support for Hardware Assisted Virtualization

• H/W assist for CPU : AMD-V on AMD or VT-x on Intel

• H/W assist for MMU

• NPT* on AMD or EPT on Intel : NPT used in our tests

• Enabled at BIOs level

• Enable NUMA support

• Understand VMM (Virtual Machine Manager)

Benefits of hardware assistance for CPU and Memory Virtualization

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/perf_vsphere_sql_scalability.pdf

Point – Use Latest Greatest Hardware ! ! !

Processor – Putting It All Together

• Leverage hardware-assisted virtualization (enabled by default)

• Consider avg. and peak utilization

• Be aware of hyper-threading, a hyper-thread does not provide the full power of a physical core

• Consider future growth of the system, sufficient head room should be reserved

• In high performance environment, consider adding additional hosts when avg. host CPU utilization exceeds 65%

• Consider increasing CPU resource if guest VM CPU utilization is above 65% in average

• Ensure Power Saving Features are “OFF”

• Use vCOPs for consumption & capaticity

Architecting For Performance: Memory

Optimizations SQL Server: Memory

Memory – Max / Min

Min is set to 0

• only change when the OS is requesting memory for other apps

Max, is 2 TB by default

• Should not equal or exceed total VM RAM, may lead to OS starvation

• Do not set to 0, may prevent SQL from starting

• If using “Hot Add” remember to modify this setting

SSQL Max Memory = VMMem – ThreadStack – OS Mem – VM Overhead • ThreadStack = NumOfSQLThreads(ThreadStackSize) • ThreadStackSize = 1 MB on x86 | 2 MB on x64

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178067.aspx

MAX SQL MEM Example

Example: 32 Gig RAM Dedicated to Environment

Set MAX SQL MEM =28G

(2 Gig O/S + 2 For the Physical)

Ntirety Rule

2 Gig + Additional 1 Gig per 16 Gig Physical Memory

Running Multiple Instances on Same VM

Two options, and do nothing is not one of them Option 1: Use max server memory

• Create max setting for each instance

• Give each instance memory proportional to expected workload / db size

• Do not exceed total RAM allocated to VM

Option 2: Use min server memory

• Create min settings for each instance

• Give each instance memory proportional to expected workload / db size

• The sum should be 1-2 GB less than RAM allocated to VM

Settings can be modified without having to restart the instances Pro Con

Max server memory When a new process or instance starts, memory is available immediately to fulfill the request

If instances are not running, the running instances cannot access the available RAM

Min server memory Running instances can leverage memory previously used by instances that are no longer running

When a new process or instance starts, running instances need to release memory

SQL Server: Memory Lock Pages in Memory

• This may keep SQL more responsive when paging occurs

• SQL Server Lock Pages in Memory is ON is 32/64 bit Standard Edition and higher if the account with rights to run sqlservr.exe has “Locked pages in Memory” rights

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178067.aspx

SQL Server: Memory

Lock Pages in Memory

This keeps SQL more responsive when paging occurs

SQL Server Lock Pages in Memory is ON in >= 32/64 bit Standard Edition

Account needs “Locked pages in Memory” rights

• Give it the RIGHTS

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178067.aspx

Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA)

• NUMA, avoiding the performance hit when several processors attempt to address the same memory by providing separate memory for each NUMA Node.

• Speeds up Processing

• NUMA Nodes Specific to Each Processor Model

Simple Example

• 4 Core System Representing 4 NUMA Nodes

• 128Gig RAM

• Each NUMA Node = 32 Gig Ram

Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA)

“For Optimal Performance: VM’s Should Not Span Multiple

NUMA Nodes. Each VM < 32GB”

Don’t Know NUMA Node Size – Ask Server Vendor

Memory ALLOCATED TO VM Is Determined by….

• DRS Shares/Limits**

• Total Memory of the Host

• Reservations

• Memory Load of the host

** Avoid Shares Limits Unless You Really Understand how they work

Swapping Occurs in Two Places • Guest VM Swapping

• ESXi Host Swapping

Swapping can slow

down I/O performance

of disks for other VM’s

Ballooning, Memory Compression, Swapping

Slow You Down

Stating the Obvious

Is Google You Best Friend….

“There is the Google DBA,

The GUI DBA ,

or the DBA that does all the

work” Charles Kim

Don’t Shut Off Memory Ballooning

Ballooning is You First

Line of Defense

How Many VMs can I Put on Host?

As many whose active memory will fit in physical RAM, while leaving some room for memory spikes.

Total Memory Demand

Active memory (%ACTV) of VM’s +

Memory Overhead – Page sharing of

VM’s (DE-Duping)

DE-Duping = Transparent Page Sharing

Transparent Page Sharing more effective The more similar the

VM’s are

“Put Like Operating Systems On Same

Physical Host”

TPS – When It Kicks In

• Very Very very Low Overhead

• Only Kicks in When Absolutely Needed !

• This is incorrect guidance floating around the Internet – Here’s why:

Reference: www.vmware.com/files/pdf/mem_mgmt_perf_vsphere5.pdf

Myth: Disable Memory TPS

Special Thanks: Michael Webster(VCDX4/5) , vExpert

Disable Unecessry Foreground Background Processes Within Guest O/S

• Example Windows

– Alerter, automatic updates, clip book, error reporting

– Help & Support, indexing, messenger, netmeeting,

– Remote desktop

• Once established (Clone for reuse by VMware)

Keep VM Footprint as small as Possible

Memory Reservations

• The VM is only allowed to power on if the CPU and memory reservation is available (strict admission)

• The amount of memory can be guaranteed even under heavy loads.

• SET CPU/Not Guaranteed

Reservations Rock !

• Set the appropriate reservations to guarantee physical memory for the VM.

• In many cases, the configured size and reservation size could be the same

Oracle Approximate Memory Architecture

Set the memory reservation to SGA size plus OS.

(Reservation & configured memory might be the same.)

Client sessions and context

SGA

(DB buffer cache, and others)

Operating System

VM

Co

nfi

gu

red

Mem

ory

Instance (PMON, SMON, DBWR, LGWR, CKPT,

others)

Reservations and vswp

Setting a reservation creates a 0.00 K

Large/Huge Pages

“Large/Huge PAGES Do Not Normally SWAP”

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1021095

In the cases where host memory is overcommitted, ESX

may have to swap out pages. Since ESX will not swap

out large pages, during host swapping, a large page

will be broken into small pages. ESX tries to share

those small pages using the pre-generated hashes

before they are swapped out. The motivation of doing

this is that the overhead of breaking a shared page is

much smaller than the overhead of swapping in a

page if the page is accessed again in the future.

Oracle – Hugepages

/etc/security/limits.conf to set soft and hard limits.

oracle soft nofile 131072

oracle hard nofile 131072

oracle soft nproc 131072

oracle hard nproc 131072

oracle soft core unlimited

oracle hard core unlimited

# -- The following entries need to adjusted with HugePages settings # oracle soft memlock 50000000

# oracle hard memlock 50000000

“HUGE PAGES Do Not Normally SWAP”

Use large pages in the guest (start SQL Server w/ Trace flag –T834)

SQL Server In-Guest Memory Best Practices

Memory – Putting It ALL Together

• Do not overcommit memory for production, mission critical SQL Server VMs

• Set provision memory = reservation = SQL Server max server memory + OS memory + virtualization overhead

• Set provision memory = reservation = Oracle SGA + OS memory + virtualization overhead

• To avoid swapping, memory limit should never be set below the provisioned size. Setting memory limit is not recommended in general

• To avoid NUMA remote memory access, size VM memory equal to or less than the memory per NUMA node if possible

Architecting For Performance: Network

Jumbo Frames

• Jumbo frames are Ethernet Frames Ethernet with more than 1500 bytes of payload. Conventionally, jumbo frames can carry up to 9000 bytes of payload

Jumbo Frames

The original 1500-byte payload size for

Ethernet frames was used because of the high error rates and

low speed of communications.

“Why The Picture Of A Typewriter Here?”

Data Movers, Pick One

Jumbo Frames

“Most Problems have to do with a problem in the Shared Disk Storage System”

“Jumbo Frames Good

For The Shared

Disk Storage System”

“A Happy Shared

Disk Storage System

Means Happy Virtualized

Environment”

Enable Jumbo Frames Check to see Will Suceed

ping -M do -s 8972 -c 2 rac01a-priv ping -M do -s 8972 -c 2 rac01b-priv ping -M do -s 8972 -c 2 rac02a-priv ping -M do -s 8972 -c 2 rac02b-priv PING rac01a (10.17.33.31) 8972(9000) bytes of data. 8980 bytes from rac01a-priv (10.17.33.31): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.017 ms 8980 bytes from rac01a-priv (10.17.33.31): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.018 ms

Will Fail ping -M do -s 8973 -c 2 rac01a-priv ping -M do -s 8973 -c 2 rac01b-priv ping -M do -s 8973 -c 2 rac02a-priv ping -M do -s 8973 -c 2 rac02b-priv

Make sure: switch support is enabled

9000 Bytes

- 20 Bytes IP Header

- 8 Bytes of ICMP Header

“8192/64 = 128”

SQL Server: Network

Network

Default packet size is 4,096

• If jumbo frames are available for the entire stack, set packet size to 8,192

Maximize Data Throughput for Network Applications

• Limit file system cache by OS

• NIC > File & Printer Sharing Microsoft Networks

• Use Minimize Memory or Balance

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/johnhicks/archive/2008/03/03/sql-server-checklist.aspx

Jumbo Frames

“Cost of Reducing To 1500 Bytes Then Back Again is Very Expensive”

Splitting Is Bad

Network – Putting All Together

• Separate SQL workloads with chatty network traffic (Microsoft Always On – Are you there) from the one with chunky access into different physical NIC

• Separate traffic for vMotion, service console, and SQL Server at physical NIC level

• Have minimum 4 NICs per host to ensure performance and redundancy of network (Virtualized Environment = Network Heavy)

• vSphere 5.0 Introduced ability to use more than 1 NIC for vMotion. (More vMoitions going at one time. Added specifically for memory intensive applications, ie: Databases)

• Use VMXNET3 (VMware driver – reduces physical CPU utilization)

AlwaysOn Availability Group Cluster Settings

Depending on YOUR network, tuning may be necessary – work with Network Team and Microsoft to determine appropriate settings

Cluster Heartbeat Parameters

Default Value

CrossSubnetDelay 1000 ms

CrossSubnetThreshold 5hb

SameSubnetDelay 1000 ms

SameSubnetThreshold 5 hb

View: cluster /cluster:<clustername> /prop

Modify: cluster /cluster:clustername> /prop <prop_name> = <value>

WSFC – Cluster Validation Wizard

125

Use this to validate support for your configuration

• Required by Microsoft Support for condition of support for YOUR configuration

Run this before installing AAG(AlwayOn Availabilty Group), and every time you make changes

• Save resulting html reports for reference

If running non-symmetrical storage, possible hotfixes required

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff878487(SQL.110).aspx#SystemReqsForAOAG

SQL Server Best Practice Analyzer

126

Use SQL Server Best Practice Anaylzer to check local or remote systems

• If running against remote system, issue Enable-PSRemoting –f via PowerShell on the target system

• In the wizard, don’t click “connect to remote computer on Home page

• On Enter Parameters link, enter SQL Server under Alternate_Server_to_Scan

• Select options

• Scan

Thank You Michael Corey

Michael.corey@ntirety.com

Blog: http://michaelcorey.ntirety.com

http://www.dbtablog.com/

@Michael_Corey

Jeff Szastak

@Szastak

THANK YOU

Virtualizing Databases: Doing IT Right

Michael Corey, Ntirety, Inc

Jeff Szastak, VMware

VAPP4724

#VAPP4724

Because Your Awesome

Appendix

“More Information You Can Use”

132

Block Alignment

Configure storage presented to ESX Hosts via vCenter to ensure

VMFS block alignment

Even though Windows is supposed to automatically align as of

Windows 2008, even Microsoft recommends double checking

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd758814.aspx

• “Whatever the operating system, confirm that new partitions are properly aligned.”

File Block Alignment 10-40% Perf Hit

When Not Aligned Additional I/O occurs

(1 I/O now equals 2+)

File Block Alignment

• When Aligned 1 I/O equals 1 I/O, One Time Setup Cost!

VMDK’s Created In vCenter 5 Are Aligned with a one MB offset

.

This is consistent with NTFS File System (Windows 7 and Windows 2008) and EXT3

Redhat 6. *

*vCenter 4 Aligns with 64K which maps to Redhat 5,

Windows 2003 and Below

vCenter aligns with O/S

Useful Links

Deployment Guides, Best Practices, Whitepapers

for SQL, Oracle, Exchange, SAP

vmware.com/go/bca

VMware Blog

blogs.vmware.com/apps

What’s New in Performance in vSphere 5.0

vmware.com/resources/techresources/10195

Achieving 1 Million I/O vSphere 5.0

vmware.com/files/pdf/1M-iops-perf-vsphere5.pdf

**Take Advantage of All resources Available to You

Useful Links

137 Confidential

VMware Technical Resource Center – Performance

• www.vmware.com/technical-resources/performance/index.html

SQL Server on vSphere High Availability Guide (technical)

• www.vmware.com/files/pdf/solutions/SQL_Server_Availability_Guide_FINAL.p

df

Useful Links

138 Confidential

Hardware and Software Requirements for Installing SQL 2012

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143506(SQL.110).aspx

Windows 2008 Clustering Whitepaper

• http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/failover-clustering-

main.aspx

Microsoft Support Policy for Windows Server 2008/R2 Failover

Clusters

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943984

Validating Hardware for a Failover Cluster

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732035(WS.10).aspx

Prerquisists for AlwaysOn AAG

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-

us/library/ff878487(SQL.110).aspx#SystemReqsForAOAG

Useful Links

139 Confidential

Availability Modes (AlwaysOn Availability Groups)

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff877931(SQL.110).aspx

Failover & Failover Modes (AlwaysOn Availability Groups)

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh213151.aspx

Configuring Quorum in a Failover Cluster

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc770620(WS.10).aspx

Configure Cluster Quorum NodeWeight

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh270281(SQL.110).aspx

Where Should AlwaysOn Backups Occur

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh213244(v=SQL.110).aspx

• Simulate SQL Server disk I/O patterns using a generic tool, such as IOMeter;

• Test to make sure requirements (throughput / latency) have been met

Example SQL IO patterns to tests:

Subsystem Verification

R/W% Type Block Threads / Queue Simulates

80/20 Random 8K # cores / Files Typical OLTP data files

0/100 Sequential 60K 1 / 32 Transaction Log

100/0 Sequential 512K 1 / 16 Table Scans

0/100 Sequential 256K 1 / 16 Bulk load

100/0 Random 32K # cores / 1 SSAS Workload

100/0 Sequential 1MB 1 / 32 Backup

0/100 Random 64K-256K # cores / Files

Checkpoints

• Cisco UCS B440

• Intel Nehalem EX processor

• CPU – 128 Cores

• CPU utilization 10%

• OS – Red Hat Linux / vSphere

• Storage – Symmetrix VMAX

• Sun Fire E25K

• UltraSPARC IV processor

• CPU – 224 Cores

• CPU utilization 80%

• OS – Solaris 10

• Storage – Symmetrix DMX-3

Sun Fire Server Unified Computing System

Re-platform

“Right Sizing Their Environment – No More Big Boxes”

https://wikis.oracle.com/display/SystemsComm/Sun+Server+X2-8

https://wikis.oracle.com/display/SystemsComm/Sun+Server+X2-4

11i Performance Statistics

“Right Sized – Everything Got Better”

11i Perf Improvements - Online

CXP transaction times

(sec)

50%-90% reduction in times for online

transactions (i.e. 2-10 times faster)

DXP transaction times

(sec)

“All Transaction Types Got Better”

Replay duration will be about 4 times faster

11i Perf improvements - Batch

Sales job timings (sec) CS job timings (sec)

85% - 95% reduction in transaction times for the above jobs (i.e. up to 20 times faster)

ACT stats

• Total ACT transactions : 392,806

• Used to require 1 hour of replay for every 3 hours of downtime

• Now requires 1 hour of replay for every 12 hours of downtime

Reduces Future 11i maintenance

windows by 20%

Source EMC

“With Virtualization Maintenance Windows Get Better”

Microsoft Support

Microsoft ensures same technical support on ESX Servers as physical servers

Microsoft Premier Support provides more support options

SQL Server 2005, 2008, SQL 2012 are all supported

SVVP SVVP Application Wizard

Verify Application Support

http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/svvp.aspx

NUMA

• SQL Server is NUMA aware

– MSDN - How SQL Handles NUMA

• vSphere 4.1 added Wide NUMA • vSphere 4.1 CPU Scheduler

NUMA

• vSphere 5 added vNUMA

– Enabled on VMs with greater than 8 vCPUs • To manually modify (.vmx file)

– numa.vcpu.maxPerVirtualNode = X

» Where X is the number of vCPUs per vNUMA node

– Is affected by Socket / Core configuration • Page 132: vSphere 5.1 Resource Management Guide

– Physical hardware to have matching NUMA architectures in vSphere Cluster

• vNUMA set upon VM boot, changed only when vCPU count changes

– vNUMA disabled when Hot Add Enabled

– vNUMA best practices: vSphere 5 Best Practices

Exceeding Host Memory can lead to ballooning, Memory Compression or Swapping

Swapping can slow

down I/O performance

of disks for other VM’s

Check Memory Utilization

Start esxtop

Press M to display memory counters

Check Memory Utilization

Start esxtop

Press M to display memory counters

Esxtop and It’s Counters

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9279

Esxtop and It’s Counters

80% Problems Caused With Configuration of Disk Subsystem

Large/Huge Pages

Rock Do Not Get Benefit of TPS

(Transparent Page Sharing)

SQL Server AlwaysOn – Client Connectivity

• SQL Server instance network name

• Virtual Network Name bound to an availability group listener

• VNN abstracts WSFC cluster and AAG topology, redirecting connections to appropriate SQL Server instance and database

replica

Now Let’s Apply that to SQL 2012

Should you Lock Pages in Memory on a AlwaysOn Secondary Node?

Should I set a vSphere memory reservation on a failover node?