A Scalable and Resilient Platform for Microsoft SQL

Microsoft SQL Server Solution Brief
A Scalable and Resilient Platform for
Microsoft SQL Server
Enterprises are increasingly virtualizing Microsoft® SQL Servers to consolidate
server footprint, cut hardware and software costs, accelerate database
provisioning and deliver databases as dynamic and economical services.
Microsoft SQL Server is one of the most widely deployed database platforms. As
the number and variety of applications in the enterprise continues to grow, it is
critical to select the right server and storage architecture to support business
needs. Different types of SQL Server workloads, for example, have drastically
different I/O signatures, impacting the application performance. For example
OLTP solutions tend to have more random and write intensive I/O than OLAP
solutions. Also, Microsoft SQL Server continues to evolve, making it vital to select
the right platform for the business.
Key Benefits
• Provides turnkey private cloud building
block
• Eliminates need for dedicated SQL server
infrastructure
• Delivers linear and seamless scale-out of
database instances
• Provides resilient and high-performance
infrastructure
• Hypervisor agnostic - provides flexibility to
adopt a hypervisor of choice
• Eliminates complexity and reduces
deployment time to less than 30 minutes.
Flexible performance, capacity and point of management are mandatory to
ensure storage resources can be rapidly provisioned as virtual servers are
added and removed. The infrastructure must also scale so that high SQL
Server performance is maintained as the environment grows. Further, it is
complex and challenging to serve varied requirements of database services
within different infrastructure siloes. For example, in a legacy SAN
environment it is complex and difficult to scale up databases, while
maintaining high performance, when capacity and storage control
resources are shared with other workloads.
The Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform overcomes the challenges
of legacy storage architectures by:
• Seamlessly integrating server and storage resources into an appliance and
eliminate the cost and complexity of legacy SAN and NAS systems
• Delivering manageability of centralized storage with the high performance
of local storage resources
• Providing flexibility to adopt a hypervisor of choice with built-in support
for all hypervisor functionality, including high availability (HA), distributed
resource scheduling (DRS), fault tolerance, and more
• Providing all the enterprise-class storage features including thin
provisioning, snapshots, replication, fast clones, compression and
de-duplication
Wcare ICT B.V. Industrieweg 20-7, 3846 BD Harderwijk T +31(0)88-378 77 00 • E [email protected] • W www.wcare.nl
Microsoft SQL Server Solution Brief
By leveraging Nutanix platform for Microsoft SQL Server deployments, IT
organizations can
Eliminate The Need For Dedicated Resources For Microsoft SQL Server
• Nutanix aggregates storage resources across a cluster to meet SQL Server
storage requirements
• Improves manageability by eliminating the need to construct SQL Server-only
infrastructure. Each SQL Server instance has its own storage controller so that its I/O
requests do not compete with requests from other VMs running on other hosts.
• Optimizes resource utilization by enabling SQL Server installations to co-exist with other
enterprise applications in a multi-tenant environment - with no performance degradation.
• Provides up to 16 physical cores for each SQL Server VM to support demanding
database projects
Gain Resiliency and Linear Scale-Out
• Nutanix scales Microsoft SQL deployments by adding nodes one at a
time – with zero downtime
• Increases the number and size of databases without expensive
scale-up investments
• Independently scales storage capacity and compute resources
• Eliminates over provisioning and improves SQL Server economics with
pay-as-you-grow scalability
• Delivers strong data protection by replicating data across all nodes in a
Nutanix cluster
Deliver Consistent and Predictable Performance
• Increases SQL Server storage capacity linearly to accurately predict
infrastructure costs and performance
• Leverages flash-based storage and economical hard disk drives to
optimize both performance and capacity usage
• Accelerates database performance with advanced de-duplication
technology that minimizes redundant data in the performance tier
(DRAM and flash)
True Linear Scale-out Performance
Database Capacity /
Number of Database Instances
• Nutanix eliminates the need for complex storage controller upgrades
to increase database performance.
Number of Nodes (4 Nodes per Block)
Radically Simplify Deployment of Virtualized Microsoft SQL
• Nutanix platform delivers rapid time to value with a portfolio of turnkey
appliances that install in less than 30 minutes – ready to run SQL Server
• Eliminates the need to define LUNs, volumes or RAID groups when
deploying new SQL Server VMs
• Embodies 100% software-defined architecture for rapid feature velocity
and unmatched investment protection
About Nutanix
Nutanix provides datacenter infrastructure solutions that are hyper-efficient, massively scalable and
elegantly simple. The award-winning Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform has disrupted the market by
seamlessly and natively converging compute and storage in a single appliance. Headquartered in San Jose,
Calif. with offices and authorized solution providers throughout the world, Nutanix is privately held and
backed by top-tier VC firms. For more information, visit www.nutanix.com.
Tel 855.NUTANIX | (855.688.2649)
Fax 408.916.4039
Email [email protected]
@nutanix
www.nutanix.com
Wcare ICT B.V. Industrieweg 20-7, 3846 BD Harderwijk T +31(0)88-378 77 00 • E [email protected] • W www.wcare.nl