Revving your business for the data explosion

Transcription

1 Microsoft SQL Server* 2008 and Intel Multi-Core Technology Revving your business for the data explosion With the information explosion well underway and economic pressures heightened, businesses are raising their demands for rapid business intelligence (BI) and simpler yet more powerful data management and business intelligence capabilities. They re also demanding more in the data center, looking for solutions to server sprawl, storage bloat, and rising total cost of ownership (TCO). Released to manufacturing in August, Microsoft SQL Server* 2008 is designed to meet those challenges and drive even deeper into the realm of mission-critical enterprise computing. Teamed with Intel multi-core technologies, the new release is helping developers get to market faster with more innovative applications giving enterprise users higher performance and scalability with lower TCO. Here s how it plays out. A Developer s-eye View: Easier, More Powerful SQL Server 2008 is an enterprise database product that runs on a wide range of platforms, consumes all types of data, offers a dynamic development environment, and provides pervasive business insights. Business requirements are constantly growing, globalization and the economy are more of a concern, and regulatory compliance and risk mitigation issues are rising, said Jack Tang, senior product manager on Microsoft s SQL Server marketing team. In building the successor to SQL Server 2005, our mission was to deliver an enterprise data platform that makes it easier and more powerful for developers to create applications that fulfill those requirements and save their customers money. Together with SQL Server Reporting Services, Analysis Services, and SQL Server Integration Services, SQL Server 2008 provides a wide range of capabilities developers can use to deliver valuable functionality to their customers. Tang points to first-time support for FileStream data and geospatial data as features that enable developers to, in his words, take database applications to another level. The FileStream data type provides the flexibility to incorporate video, music, images, and other unstructured information into database and data warehouse applications. Geospatial data aids developers in consuming, using, and extending location-based data in spatial applications. We re seeing 16

2 it used everywhere from real estate services to applications that plot out data to optimize supply chain efficiencies, Tang commented. I have basically the same number of developers I did three Using SQL Server 2008, data can years ago but we re producing at least three times, maybe be accessed from and directed out to four times as much output now. Part of the explanation is servers in the data center, occasionally connected mobile devices, and any platform that the servers are so much better today. in between. SQL Server also integrates Quentin Hurd, Solution Manager with Microsoft SharePoint* Server and Microsoft BI Insight Solutions the Microsoft Office suite, so developers can provide insights and reports in a form that users can readily share and act on, Instant Drill-Down, Instant Views wherever they need them, on whatever devices they want One group that s using SQL Server 2008 s rich feature set and to use. Intel technologies to deliver added user value is the BI insight solution team for Microsoft s worldwide licensing and pricing (WWLP) finance organization. The BI insight team designs SQL-based solutions that provide the company s executives and financial analysts with timely Services information on business accounts worth approximately USD 24 billion in annual revenue to the company. Reporting Integration The team upgraded its financial reporting solution to SQL Server 2008 and migrated to an HP ProLiant* server with four Analysis FILE Synch Intel Xeon processor 7300 series. What used to be a SQL Query RDBMS OLAP Server table that got downloaded to a Microsoft Excel* pivot XML Search is now in a data cube on the server, which with Intel multicore performance is now much faster for developers to build and for end users to view and manipulate. Previously, users who wanted to access the reports had to download Excel spreadsheets and manipulate them Mobile and Cloud desktop Datacenter Storage on the desktop, a time-consuming task given the file sizes in the hundreds of megabytes and rising. Now, the Excel workbook loads immediately; Excel Services takes output Microsoft SQL Server 2008 from the data cube, performs calculations, and sends results to the client, providing virtually instant drill-down and instant views. Microsoft.net Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft It used to take something like 10 minutes to get Visual Studio BizTalk Server Office one attribute into the report, recalled Cathy Luo, lead developer for the WWLP BI insight solutions team. That s a pain. With the new cube and the Intel quad-core machine, the average query processing time is maybe one INTEL MULTI-CORE FOUNDATION minute. That is a totally different experience. ENTITY DATA M ODEL Powered by Intel multi-core technologies, SQL Server* 2008 helps developers get to market faster with more scalable, higher performing applications that reduce customers TCO. 17

3 One critical report took six hours to run and 30 minutes to process and download each time a user needed it. Now, the report runs in one-third the time. We have several days to pull the data down, test and audit it, and build the cube, said Quentin Hurd, solution manager for the BI insight solutions group. With the increased performance, we can complete more updates and still hit our deadline. Getting There Faster When it comes to improving developer productivity, SQL Server 2008 starts with seamless integration between data, frameworks, data connectivity technologies, programming languages, Web services, and development tools. Programmers have the flexibility to work In building the successor to SQL Server 2005, our mission was to deliver an enterprise data platform that makes it easier and more powerful for developers to create applications that fulfill those requirements and save their customers money. Jack Tang, Senior Product Manager Microsoft SQL Server Marketing with different data types, write code in a choice of programming languages, and utilize connectors to easily access non-sql databases and other external resources. Two particularly significant advances are the ADO.NET Entity Framework and the.net Language Integrated Query (LINQ) extension to Microsoft Visual C#* and Microsoft Visual Basic*.NET. While the complexity of mapping applications to database architecture has traditionally slowed development, ADO.NET and LINQ enable programmers to concentrate on business logic and spend less time mapping user views of data to the underlying database. Developers can work within the familiar Microsoft Visual Studio* environment, using expanded functionality and enhanced wizards to accelerate tasks ranging from building cubes, to creating integrated reporting and analytics solutions, to designing complex reports. Fewer tasks require developers to write scripts, and more can be accomplished out of the box by dragging and dropping pre-built tasks. New 18

4 data mining wizards in Analysis Services make predictive analysis solutions dramatically easier to develop. Record-Busting Performance With multiple cores and large caches, Intel server technologies are advancing the performance of database and data warehouse applications and transforming today s data centers. SQL Server 2008 is built to take full advantage of the capabilities Intel builds into its platform technologies. For starters, most SQL Server 2008 features are optimized for Intel s multi-core and multi-threaded platforms, enabling applications developed for SQL Server to utilize system resources effectively without programmer involvement. Tasks such as data encryption and compression get spun off to their own cores, enhancing security and reducing storage requirements with minimal performance impact. SQL Server understands nonuniform memory architecture (NUMA) and improves memory access times for NUMA-aware applications by making most calls to local memory. New scalability features in SQL Server 2008, such as snapshot isolation, partitioning, and 64-bit support, also take advantage of Intel s multi-core foundation, to address the needs of the largest enterprises. Intel software engineers worked side by side with Microsoft s database and compiler teams to ensure marketleading performance on Intel technologies. We have a team that sits onsite at Microsoft, collaborating to drive scalability and performance on Intel-based platforms, said Hamesh Patel, a senior software engineer who heads Intel s SQL Server 2008 performance optimization team. Our work together has resulted in significant scalability improvements and speedups in OLTP performance, among other areas. The team used the Intel VTune Performance Analyzer with Visual Studio to identify and eliminate potential bottlenecks. Recent TPC-E 1 industry benchmarks confirm the impact of their collaboration. The TPC-E benchmarks demonstrate advanced scalability and record-setting price/performance for SQL Server 2008 on the new Intel Xeon processor 7350 and the Intel Xeon processor 7460-based servers, Patel stated. The high performance of quad-core Intel processors and SQL Server 2008 delivers a practical impact for the Microsoft WWLP solution. We re seeing 3x improvements on most Microsoft SQL Server 2008 workloads with the move to four-way, quad-core Intel Xeon processors, Hurd said. When creating business insight solutions from many terabytes of product pricing, customer sales, and other details, no other system I ve worked with performs at the same price per watt. This technology truly knocks my socks off. Higher performance also enhances developer productivity. With SQL s thread pooling and Intel s quad-core architectures, our development cycle My team doesn t have to spend time figuring out how to parallelize code and manage data across multiple processors. We can focus on solving business problems. Peter Hammond, Head of software development services, CyberSavvy is a lot faster, said Kim Heinrich, senior developer for Microsoft s BI insight solutions team. So many development processes are iterative you build a step and run it to see if it s going to work. When tasks are parallelized over more cores, the data throughput is faster, and the development cycle gets faster too. Among other tasks, developers can move quickly through more aggregation designs, determining the right level of pre-aggregation faster. The cumulative impact for Hurd s WWLP team is massive. I have basically the same number of developers I did three years ago but we re producing at least three times, maybe four times as much output now, he said. Part of the explanation is that the server platforms are so much better today. Betting on New Data Center Strategies Along with capabilities such as data compression and encryption, the new version of SQL Server brings strong administrative and management tools for database administrators. SQL Management Studio provides a onestop shop for monitoring and managing system resources dynamically and enhancing data center flexibility. The new Resource Governor feature allows administrators to explicitly manage concurrent workloads

5 Database Factory Automation Redmond, Washington-based startup CyberSavvy develops software solutions and SaaS offerings that capitalize on Microsoft SQL Server* 2008.NET Framework and run on Intel quad-core technologies. Its flagship SaaS product, DataPlace*, is an automated database factory that developers use to accelerate the tasks of building, deploying, and managing database solutions for occasionally connected client applications. CyberSavvy recently completed its participation in the year-long Microsoft s year-long Internal Technology Adopters Program (TAP) for Microsoft SQL Server 2008, which provided them with early access to SQL Server 2008 and its integrated development environment. CyberSavvy also upgraded its server and storage infrastructure, moving to Dell platforms based on the Intel Xeon processor 5355, among other changes. CyberSavvy s DataPlace SaaS solution began realizing significant improvements from the upgrades, including accelerating DataPlace enterprise database automation services by up to 80 percent. With DataPlace, CyberSavvy has seen its own database development costs fall to less than 10 percent of project budget. Its Project360 * SaaS product, a task-tracking and productivity solution built on the DataPlace platform, went from idea to production in less than a month. Peter Hammond, head of software development services said it would normally have been a three-month project, had it not been for DataPlace s automation, synchronization, and other capabilities, newly accelerated by the SQL Server 2008 and quad-core upgrades. CyberSavvy developers, using new Dell Precision* M6300 mobile workstations with Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme processor, also improved productivity as application builds in Microsoft Visual Studio* 2008 dropped from three minutes to less than 10 seconds. To host applications for its growing list of business customers, CyberSavvy needs high performance, rock-solid availability, and extensive scalability. We plan to grow into a global SaaS provider, Hammond said. With SQL Server 2008, Intel multi-core technologies, and DataPlace s design, we see no limit to our ability to scale. SQL Server 2008 running on Intel multi-core server platforms is a win for any organization concerned about database performance and scalability, in Hammond s view. SQL Server 2008 completely embraces multi-core, he observed. It distributes its workload and delivers self-optimized performance, and it s completely transparent it s just there. My team doesn t have to spend We plan to grow into a global SaaS provider. With SQL Server 2008, Intel multi-core technologies, and DataPlace s design, we see no limit to our ability to scale. Peter Hammond, Head of software development services, CyberSavvy Businesses are capitalizing on the expanded SQL Server 2008 feature set and the breakthrough performance and scalability of Intel technologies to tackle their most mission-critical, data-intensive workloads. Case in point: Gibraltar-based bwin International is upgrading to SQL Server 2008 on Intel Itanium processor-based systems for its global sports betting site. Bwin is enjoying very rapid growth, says Michael Schneglberger, who heads bwin s Using its DataPlace* solution with SQL Server* 2008 and Intel quad-core processors, CyberSavvy took a new product from concept to production in less than a month. time figuring out how to parallelize code and manage data across multiple processors. We can focus on solving business problems. To stay competitive, nimble, and profitable as software solution developers, that s what we all need to do. database engineering group. For example, our gross gaming revenues [from sports betting, poker, casinos, and games] have increased by triple-digit percentages in recent years. SQL Server has scaled to meet our needs. Bwin s IT infrastructure hosts over 100 terabytes of data and comprises more than 800 databases. Numerous tables have more than 1 billion rows, and the largest has over 2 billion rows. In addition to providing scalability, the two technologies have to handle steep peaks during events 20

6 businesses can isolate database solutions that have different workloads, security requirements, manageability requirements, or compatibility requirements while simplifying data center infrastructure and reducing TCO. Petabytes in the Crosshairs With the release of SQL Server 2008, software engineers at Intel and Microsoft are looking to the next round of advances. One area they re excited about: integrating the DATAllegro* data warehouse appliance that Microsoft acquired this year. DATAllegro was developed for Intel architecture, and when it s integrated with SQL Server, it s going to dramatically expand the universe of data warehouses with hundreds and hundreds of terabytes, Patel added. Intel is very much planning our next-generation architectures to support the petabyte-scale databases and data warehouses that we know bwin International processes up to a million bets a day through its online sports betting are in the future. services. Powering the site are the Intel Itanium processor, over 100 terabytes of Meanwhile, Hurd challenges developers to data, and over 100 instances of SQL Server*. SQL Server 2008 backup compression is shrinking bwin s backup footprint, with table sizes reduced by up to 80 percent. make the most of the advances afforded by SQL Server 2008 and multi-core Intel server like World Cup Soccer, when fans the world over are placing technologies. With the enabling technologies getting so much faster, we bets and checking to see how they ve done. Bwin processes as developers should be able to take the spread and use the improved over 30,000 database transactions per second (tps) during performance to roll out tools and packages and solutions faster for our peak gaming periods. customers, he said in conclusion. I challenge my staff to step up our It s not enough to deliver reliable, instantaneous timeline, and I challenge developers who read this to step up their timelines responsiveness to its customers. Bwin is also looking to as well to respond to our end users with better solutions in less time. n SQL Server 2008 to help the company manage its complex environment. Bwin plans to use SQL Server 2008 s policybased management to define resource limits, prioritize Find out more at: workloads, and ensure predictable performance. The Contributors company also expects to use policy-based management Peter Hammond - CyberSavvy and data auditing to help demonstrate compliance with the industry s stringent regulatory requirements. Kim Heinrich - Microsoft Many enterprises are adopting virtualization as a way Quentin Hurd - Microsoft to consolidate their server and storage environments. SQL JK Lialias - Intel Server 2008 enables businesses to consolidate their data Cathy Luo - Microsoft services using virtualization an approach that s reinforced Hamesh Patel - Intel by the extensive system resources and hardware-assisted Jan Rowell, Contributing Writer, Intel Software Insight virtualization capabilities of Intel server platforms. By using virtualization with SQL Server 2008 and Intel technologies, Jack Tang - Microsoft 21