Gavin Paynehttp://blog.gavinpayneuk.com

twitter: @GavinPayneUK

SQL Server Update – May 2010

• SQL Server 2008 R2 will be available in May

• SQL Azure is now available and gaining credibility

• SQL Server is now scaling massively

Presentation Summary

• Current Business Trends

Globalisation – 24/7 and distributed workloadsCompliance – Information handling under scrutinyBusiness Intelligence – Covered on a further slideAgility – Change, acquisition and mergers now

common

• Current Technology Trends

Virtualisation – The biggest request of Microsoft right now

Cloud – Bleeding edge adoption building concept confidence

Hardware – Nehalem technology, 8-core CPU, SSD

Recent Industry Observations from MSFT

Highlights

• Client-side Features

PowerPivot – Self-service BI through Excel

• Server-side Features

Enhanced Hyper-V support – virtualisation enablerDatacenter edition – delivering massive scalabilityEnhanced compression – operational I/O reducerSysprep support – simplifying implementation

SQL Server 2008 R2 – What’s New?

• In the economic downturn BI was a growth market

• Marketplaces and their data were changing by the hour

• End-users wanted to analyse and report in real time

• Data warehouses refreshed too infrequently

• And were owned, defined and controlled by IT

• Solution – self-service BI tools which IT can still manage

Why Client-side BI Now?

Two notable changes in R2:

• Licensing

Enterprise and Datacenter editions align with Windows- VM usage rights changed

• Backup Compression

Now available in Standard Edition- Game changer for DBAs

and 3rd party backup compression providers

SQL Server 2008 R2 – What’s Changed?

Reminder of what now comes in the SQL Server box:

SQL Server 2008 R2 – Product Breadth

Integration Services

.net CLR platform Analysis Services

Reporting Services Full-text Indexing Management Services

SQL Server Broker Database Engine StreamInsight

Master Data Services

XML storage Power Shell

Self-service BI Data Mining Spatial Storage

• Appliance format massive scale data warehouse

• Sold with specific hardware as a complete solution

• Scales to hundreds of TBs

• Deploys multiple centrally controlled database nodes

• SQL Server Fast Track methodology for smaller DWs

SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse

• Cloud-based SQL Server

• Relational database to compliment Windows Azure

• Designed to mirror SQL Server 2008’s core functionality

• At a price point which cannot be ignored for very long

SQL Azure

• Launched in February 2010

• Already a small but notable and increasing user base

• Currently aimed at “department sized” applications

• 1GB and 10GB offerings today

• Designed for HA but no database backup facility yet

SQL Azure

• Microsoft aim for Service Updates every 8 weeks

• Due soon are:

Reporting services and BI functionsSpatial data types50GB database option

• Unlike other vendors, Microsoft already have the functionality written, they just need to re-deploy it to the cloud

SQL Azure

• Microsoft’s long term aim is to “make cloud irrelevant”

• Where your code and data are hosted is based on today’s business requirements, could change at midday

• However, in the medium term cloud and on-premise versions of SQL Server may have parallel functionality roadmaps

SQL Azure

• SQL Server is now the most demanding application to use Windows Server – everything else scales out

• SQL Server can and is now powering the world’s most demanding business application infrastructures

• Microsoft’s SQLCAT team focus on delivering these platforms - http://sqlcat.com/

• Their web site is loaded with best practice

SQL Server Scalability

• Windows Enterprise and Datacenter editions can deliver massive computing power to SQL Server

• 128 CPU cores, 2TB memory, 200+ TB OLTP databases

• Intel’s latest Nehalem CPUs are powering a revolution in X64 server capability

• Itanium support has been dropped – no longer required

SQL Server Scalability In Depth

• Hyper-threading is back and recommended

• NUMA boundaries will become part of daily life

• NIC activity is now a workload of its own

• Disk alignment maybe simple but is a huge quick win

• Centralised SQL Server management will be essential as databases outnumber DBAs

SQL Server Scalability Tips From The Field

• SSDs have now arrived, expensive but mainstream

• Not all SSDs are the same, some using SATA

• FusionIO appearing as a popular brand

• Very low latency, very high I/O rates

• Not a cure for badly designed schemas or SANs, but will no doubt be used as one

Solid State Devices

• SQL Server 2008 R2 has been released

• Some good changes for those motivated to use them

• SQL Azure has made a good entrance and will become a no-brainer for some future deployments

• Virtualisation and consolidation are today’s biggest activities within IT – SQL Server can be very efficient

• SQL Server can also be very powerful

Conclusion