SQL Server Upgrading to. and Beyond ABSTRACT: By Andy McDermid

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1 Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 and Beyond ABSTRACT: By Andy McDermid If you re still running an older version of SQL Server, now is the time to upgrade. SQL Server 2014 offers several useful new features that will make the trouble of upgrading worth your while, including new functions to optimize performance and features to improve security. The first step is to assess the current state of your server and develop a plan for upgrading and migrating your data. There are a couple of ways to do this, each of which we discuss.

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3 content A Roadmap to Upgrading SQL Server... New Features in SQL And More... Resources for Planning Your Upgrade Final Thoughts... 3 About Datavail... 4

4 Your organization is still running SQL Server 2000, 2005, or Isn t it time to upgrade? With the release of SQL Server 2016, you may want to consider an upgrade to one of the more modern SQL environments. When you re equipped with a clear plan, upgrading won t seem like an impossible task. We ll walk you through some of the fundamentals to help you prepare for a successful transition to a modern database environment. In this white paper, we ll look at the types of upgrades possible, the limitations and opportunities associated with migrating to a newer version of SQL Server, what some of the newer features are, and some helpful tools and resources. There are many aspects of the upgrade process you will want to consider as you prepare to make the transition, some of which may present challenges. Some of these include licensing, the migration path, how to provision your servers, and new features you ll be able to leverage to your organization s advantage. Do you want SQL Server to remain an on-premise application? You might want it to be virtualized or move it to the cloud either an entire database server or just the database itself. All questions to consider. You probably already see some advantages and disadvantages associated with each method. The in-place option is a significant commitment, since rolling back can be challenging. The process is, however, relatively easy and fast. The side-by-side upgrade is potentially much easier to roll back and you can plan ahead by setting up a new server well in advance of migrating the data. This provides you and your staff with the opportunity to conduct lots of testing and tweaking before bringing the system online. This option is the most costly, primarily because you need to set up an entire separate, new hardware infrastructure to run in parallel with the legacy system. Plus you may need some additional disk space to handle the data or backups you will copy over. Why and how should you choose a path to upgrading? One critical topic will dictate your best possible choice: licensing. Microsoft radically changed how SQL Server is licensed with Microsoft SQL Server Where the license was once applied per socket, it is now applied per core. If we look at SQL Server 2014, for example, numerous options are available. With the Standard Edition, you can have a Core License or a Server and Client Access License. But if you choose to install the Enterprise Edition, your only option is the Core License. For the SQL Server Business Intelligence Edition, the only option is the Server and Client Access License. A Roadmap to Upgrading SQL Server First, you ll need to know where you re going, and determine the best possible migration path. There may be some limitations on that path. If you are on SQL 2000, you can t upgrade directly to SQL 2012, for example. You would have to update your system to the SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 4 first. You ll also need to consider the operating system underpinning your environment. You won t be able to run SQL 2012 on Windows Server 2003, for example. And you can t make jumps from a 32- to 64-bit version or from SQL Enterprise Edition to Standard Edition. So, what types of upgrades are possible? You can select an in-place upgrade or a side-by-side upgrade. With an in-place upgrade, everything all the hardware and operating systems stays the same. All you need do is upgrade the existing SQL instance to the newer, desired version. A side-by-side upgrade involves constructing an entirely new system alongside the existing server. You will then migrate the databases and any other critical resources from the old server to the new server environment. With the shift to per-core licensing, users have to make a basic purchase of four cores. Each subsequent license is sold in packs of two. Thus, per-core licensing may prove more expensive. If cost is an issue, this may preclude your organization from undertaking an in-place upgrade. A side-by-side upgrade provides users with many opportunities to bring in new hardware, software, and possibly other technologies. First, a companion server with SQL 2012 or 2014 installed is needed in preparation for migrating the databases. Page 1 Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 and Beyond 2015 Datavail, Inc. All rights reserved.

5 That new server can be most anything, including all modern hardware, which is my preference. This would enable the system to take advantage of the fastest available disk technology and newer, faster CPUs. As another example, the new server could be part of a Windows Failover Cluster to bring some high-availability into the upgrade plan. This type of upgrade also provides options to change the operating system and/or SQL editions. It is very possible that due to licensing changes and other factors your upgrade project will be completed using a side-by-side technique. This will give you a great opportunity to evaluate where you want to be with your SQL environment, make a plan, and work to implement the upgrade. Before going further in the planning process, take stock of what you re facing. You need to be aware of your three big resources on what will soon be your legacy server: CPU, memory, and disk. With CPU, look at speed and core count to get a sense of the existing server resource. For memory, we need only look at the Windows Server s properties to find that information. What is your disk speed? You need to know your IOPS (input/output operations per second) to have a benchmark of the speed. These metrics let you know the current server s theoretical capability. Now we need to see how much of each of those resources are actually being used, which is simple to determine by using PerfMon counters. Granted, the analysis becomes more complicated if you intend to migrate and upgrade a single database or group of databases. Provisioning a new server is much easier when you understand resource usage on the legacy server. If you have that information, you know exactly the resources you need. If going to the cloud is an option, Azure makes the provisioning process super easy. Figure your metrics. Go to Azure. Pick your machine. Almost any possible size of machine you might need is available from a single core, single-disk server with less than one GB of RAM to one with 32 cores and 450 GB of RAM. What s really cool with Azure is that if you under-provision, it s no problem. Just level up. The same is true for scaling up if your workload changes. You can also easily scale down. New Features in SQL 2014 Why would you want to upgrade? Because older SQL versions are falling out of support. Support has already ended for SQL SQL 2008 is in extended support and reaching obsolescence. You don t really want your database technology to be a decade behind, do you? There are also several new features that should make an upgrade worth your time and effort. Since SQL 2016 is still CTP we will focus on SQL 2014 here. Although there are quite a few interesting new features and a great deal of information about SQL 2014 available, in this paper, we will focus on a mix of features practical for many users. Backups: In a well-managed environment we back up databases regularly and follow all the best practices, including testing those backups. But what type of security should there be? With SQL 2005, users could password protect their backups, but even Microsoft will acknowledge that s not really sufficient. With 2008, the Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) option became available for data-at-rest encryption. The data and log files of a database, as well the backup data could be encrypted; the only problem is that TDE is an Enterprise Edition feature only. With SQL 2014, Backup Encryption is a Standard Edition feature. This is excellent news for those users running the Standard Edition and currently using third-party encryption tools. Another benefit is that the new backup technology provides better compression than the TDE backups, because the data is first compressed and then encrypted. Improved Cardinality Estimator: This is a part of the query engine that acts as an interface between the data s statistics and the query optimizer. This function determines how many rows are going to come back from a given table which will dictate, in part, the choice of query plan. Will a plan use a seek operation or a scan operation to pull data? Will a join within the plan be a merge join or an inner join? A good query plan, based on good cardinality estimations, allows SQL to access and return the data as fast as possible. If you want to use this feature, you need to make certain the database compatibility matches the instance version. Otherwise, to keep your 2014 database compatibility but the legacy cardinality estimator, set trace flag You can either make this a start-up parameter, or individual queries use this flag. Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 and Beyond Page 2

6 If you want to keep your database at the legacy compatibility but you want to try the new cardinality estimation server-wide, or for a particular session or query, use trace flag Microsoft is confident the improvements in cardinality estimation will be have a positive effect and allow the optimizer to generate better plans, but in the event your performance degrades there is the option to turn it off via these trace flags. This is an intriguing feature, however we suggest you give it a test via replaying a workload against a test version of your database. And More... Let s go through a few more features quickly. You may find delayed durability an interesting feature which trades the strict durability ideal of RDB systems for improved transaction log throughput. Or online index rebuilds by partition and low priority waiting, which is available in the Enterprise Edition. Others include Buffer Pool Extension to, well, extend the buffer pool to disk, AlwaysOn Availability group support which now supports nine replicas and new features for Windows Failover Clustering like Common Storage Volumes... There is a great deal of information already available about these new features available from Microsoft and reliable third parties. Resources for Planning Your Upgrade We ve already noted that it's best to have a plan. Some of the tools, documents, and reference material you will find useful in developing that plan are listed below. The Microsoft Best Practice Analyzer Tool 2012 The Microsoft Database Upgrade Advisor Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Upgrade Technical Guide The Datavail Health Check/Database Server Assessment Datavail SQL Server Upgrade Checklist available at datavail.com The Datavail Blog, which has useful information on working with SQL 2014 and SQL Visit Final Thoughts To review, you need to define your upgrade path by selecting the license and upgrade most appropriate for your organization. Then decide on the target. Start by identifying where your system is now and provision a destination based on current usage, taking into account a forecast of where the organization s SQL environment might be in three to five years. Regardless of whether you are using the Standard or Enterprise Editions, be familiar with all of the features so you can test them to determine whether one or more of these should be implemented. With either Enterprise or Standard Edition, you want to extract as much utility out of SQL Server as you can both for your end users and to get the best RIO on your investment of a SQL Server upgrade. Now you've planned the project write the whole thing out. This might be a requirement for your specific business, but even if it s not, you ll be happy to have the information in written form. Consider it your blueprint for success. If you are still using SQL 2005 or SQL 2008, upgrading may seem like a daunting task. No joke. It is. SQL Server technology has changed so much in the last decade. Upgrading may seem like a task you can put off, but its best not to delay migrating your server for many of the reasons we delineated previously. It s time to begin the migration process by defining your organization s business priorities and aligning your SQL environment to fit those needs. Upgrades are nothing new for Datavail, but each pose new challenges. With more than 400 database administrators and 300-plus clients worldwide, Datavail is the largest pure-play database services provider in North America. With 24x7 managed database services, including database design, architecture and staffing, Datavail can support your organization s transition to the newest version of SQL Server, regardless of the version you ultimately select. Contact Datavail to discuss a custom SQL Server solution designed for your enterprise. You can learn more about our remote database services and how our experts can help with your ongoing SQL Server operations. For more solutions to common and advanced SQL Server questions as well as many other database administration related questions, visit our frequently updated blog. Page 3 Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 and Beyond 2015 Datavail, Inc. All rights reserved.

7 Biography Andy McDermid Principal SQL Server DBA for Datavail Andy is a MCITP certified MS SQL DBA who delivers and manages delivery of DBA services to many diverse clients. He enjoys helping his clients by finding and deploying pragmatic and practical solutions for their database issues. Andy is always working to improve and expand his DBA skills and he likes to share the experience via writing. About Datavail Datavail Corporation is the largest pure-play provider of remote database administration (DBA) services in North America, offering database design and architecture, administration and 24x7 support. The company specializes in Oracle, Oracle E-Business Suite, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, MongoDB, DB2 and SharePoint, and provides flexible on-site/off-site, onshore/offshore service delivery options to meet each customer s unique business needs. Contact Us General Inquiries: Fax Number: info@datavail.com Corporate Headquarters: Datavail Corporation Ridge Parkway Suite 125 Broomfield, CO Database Operations Control Center: Datavail Infotech Pvt. Ltd 3rd Floor, Unit No. B-3 Ashar IT Park, Road No. 16Z Wagale Estate Thane (West), Thane Direct Telephone Number: Bangalore Office Datavail Infotech Pvt. Ltd Concept Business Park #319/9, 1st floor, Block A Hosur Main Road Bommanahalli, Bangalore Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 and Beyond Page 4

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