EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP

EMC Solutions for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP EMC Global Solutions 42 South Street Hopkinton, MA 01748-9103 1-508-435-1000 www.emc.com www.emc.com

Copyright 2008 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published September, 2008 EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED AS IS. EMC CORPORATION MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION, AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP P/N H4070.3 2 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP

Contents About this Document... 5 Chapter 1 Solution Overview... 7 Business challenge... 8 Technology solution... 8 Solution advantages... 8 Chapter 2 Solution Architecture... 9 Overall architecture... 10 General characteristics... 10 Network architecture... 11 Switches... 11 Storage architecture... 11 RecoverPoint appliance architecture... 12 Disk configuration... 12 Disk alignment... 14 Application server architecture... 15 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 architecture... 15 Chapter 3 Hardware and Software Resources... 17 Hardware resources... 18 Software resources... 19 Appendix A Detailed Server Hardware Listing... 21 Detailed server hardware listing... 22 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP 3

Contents 4 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP

About this Document This document provides an overview of the architecture of an EMC Database Solution using Microsoft SQL Server 2005, developed by the EMC Global Solutions Group. Purpose Information in this document can be used as the basis for a solution build, white paper, best practices document, or training. Information in this document can also be used by other EMC organizations (for example, the technical services or sales organization) as the basis for producing documentation for a technical services or sales kit. Audience This document is intended for internal EMC personnel, partners, and customers. Scope This document describes the architecture of an EMC industry solution built and tested at the EMC Global Solutions Validation lab at Research Triangle Park, N.C. Implementation instructions and sizing guidelines are beyond the scope of this document. For detailed information about the tests performed to validate this solution, refer to: EMC Solutions for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 CLARiiON CX3 FCP - Validation Test Report Related documents The following documents provide additional, relevant information. EMC Solutions for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP - Applied Best Practices EMC Solutions for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP - Validation Test Report Access to these documents is based on your login credentials. If you do not have access to the content, contact your EMC representative. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP 5

About this Document 6 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP

Chapter 1 Solution Overview This chapter presents these topics: Business challenge... 8 Technology solution... 8 Solution advantages... 8 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP 7

Solution Overview Business challenge With increasing demands and limited resources, today s midsize enterprises face challenges similar to their larger counterparts. Apart from managing the burgeoning IT costs and reducing the risk of business disruption, some of the challenges midsize enterprises face include: Technology solution Solution advantages Consolidating multiple database applications scattered throughout the enterprise Ensuring information access, availability, and continuity Maximizing server and storage utilization to deliver optimal system performance Managing upgrades and migrations Reducing the demands on limited IT resources and budgets Decreasing the complexity of technology choices The Microsoft SQL Server 2005 CLARiiON CX3 Series FC solution leverages SAN connectivity to consolidate Microsoft database information. Centralization of information and consolidation of resources create immense economic advantages for any business. The solution offers the following advantages: Table 1 Solution advantages Benefit Maintain service levels Reduce costs Reduce risk Accelerate implementations Details Keep critical and revenue-generating Microsoft applications available and running at peak performance. Minimize the cost of database and information management. Proven reference architecture with tested and validated configurations to ensure performance and scalability, among others. EMC Professional Services and ASN-certified EMC Partners provide rapid assessment and efficient implementation. 8 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP

Chapter 2 Solution Architecture This chapter presents these topics: Overall architecture... 10 General characteristics... 10 Network architecture... 11 Storage architecture... 11 RecoverPoint appliance architecture... 12 Disk configuration... 12 Disk alignment... 14 Application server architecture... 15 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP 9

Solution Architecture Overall architecture Figure 1 shows the overall architecture of the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 CX3-40 FC solution. The solution is currently made up of a consolidation module that comprises the following components: Client (or public) LAN, and FC SAN networks Microsoft SQL Server 2005 connected to the client LAN and FC SAN networks Clients connected to the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 through the client LAN Replication to a remote site through the EMC RecoverPoint appliance Figure 1 Overall architecture of the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on a VMware solution General characteristics The solution architecture has the following general characteristics: The Microsoft SQL Server 2005 resides on a VMware ESX Server 64 bit virtual machine. The Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition SP2 (64-bit) runs on Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition 64-bit R2 SP2 in a Microsoft Cluster (MSCS), which itself runs on VMware ESX Server 3.5. 10 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP

Solution Architecture The VMware VirtualCenter server is hosted on a physical Microsoft cluster for maximum availability. Database datafiles, logfiles, TempDB files, and system database files reside on separate RAID groups (physical RAID arrays). LUNs for the database files and database logfiles are designed specifically to sustain TPC-C (simulated OLTP) type I/O loads. The EMC CLARiiON CX3-40 storage system can support other applications in addition to Microsoft SQL Server 2005. IP (Gigabit Ethernet and VLAN) connections are designed to balance and distribute network traffic. All files for a virtual machine, including the OS and database files, are stored on the CLARiiON CX3-40 storage system, thereby decreasing server replacement complexity. RecoverPoint version 3.0 is hosted on a physical RecoverPoint appliance cluster. Network architecture Switches Storage architecture The management and client networks shown in Figure 1 include IP switches. These switches support Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 Gb/s) connections. The solution uses Fibre Channel technology and a standard switched-fabric topology. The switches use VLANs to segment the specific port groups to which the storage and hosts are connected. Figure 2 illustrates the ports on the EMC CLARiiON CX3-40 storage processor. Figure 2 EMC CLARiiON CX3-40 storage processor ports The CX3-40f storage processor supports four front-end (optical) 4 Gb Fibre Channel ports and four back-end 4 Gb Fibre Channel ports. The storage processor supports host port operation in 1 Gb, 2 Gb, and 4 Gb modes for compatibility with an existing Fibre Channel infrastructure. The mode is independently determined for every port and can be changed using the CLARiiON Navisphere Management Console. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP 11

Solution Architecture Additional ports on the storage processor are as follows: RS232 serial up to 115k baud service port with modem support capabilities (micro DB9) RS232 serial SPS port (micro DB9) 10/100 LAN management port (RJ45) 10/100 LAN service port (RJ45) RecoverPoint appliance architecture Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) indicate the status of the power and port links. The solution runs RecoverPoint 3.0 software as its operating system that can be accessed through a command console or a remote GUI interface using a Windows browser. The following communication ports are required: Four 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel ports for connection to the host and storage array 1 Gb/s LAN management port (RJ45) 1 Gb/s WAN port (RJ45) Disk configuration The CLARiiON storage system consists of a series of disk-array enclosures (DAEs). Each DAE can hold up to 15 disks. The CX3-40 can scale up to eight DAEs with a total of 120 disks. The disks can be logically combined across DAEs to form RAID groups. The RAID groups can be segmented into logical unit numbers, or LUNs. The LUNs can be exposed to the Microsoft Windows operating system. When additional storage is required, disks can be added to DAEs that are not yet full, or new DAEs can be installed and combined into additional RAID groups. The LUNs can be expanded to form metaluns. A metalun retains the logical unit number of the original LUN. The metaluns can also be exposed to the Microsoft Windows operating system. Note: EMC CLARiiON FLARE two-disk RAID 1/0 is similar to RAID 1 (FLARE is the CLARiiON operating environment). Both employ one-to-one disk mirroring. The significant difference between the two is that RAID 1/0 supports RAID group expansion (assigning additional disks to a RAID group) whereas RAID 1 does not. The following disk configuration was used as a part of this solution: Table 2 Disk configuration Configuration Number of spindles System TempDB Data Log Backup 1 2 2 12 4 9 There was a single disk configuration tested that had 12 spindles for the TPC-C database data and four database log spindles. Figure 3 illustrates the distribution of application files across the spindles. 12 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP

Solution Architecture Figure 3 Disk configuration 4 In the configuration, the TPC-C database datafiles were stored in two datafiles, each in its own LUN, and both LUNs were taken from the RAID 1/0 group of 12 spindles. Each LUN of 200 GB (total of 400 GB) contained a single database datafile of 175 GB (350 GB total). Therefore, the total size of the database datafiles was 350 GB, of which 240 GB was used at the beginning of the test iteration set. The TPC-C database logfile was contained in a single LUN, which was presented from the RAID 1/0 group of four spindles. The single database log LUN was 100 GB, and contained a 50 GB database logfile. The two spindles allocated to the system area contained a LUN that had all of the system database files and logfiles such as msdb, master, model, and so on. If the change rate of any of the system databases is high, or if the more recent data is critical, then it is recommended that the system database log files be stored on a LUN that is on a different RAID group, thereby physically isolating the logs from the database to maximize recoverability. In the solution that was tested, as the system databases sustained few or no changes at regular intervals, this was not an issue. The quorum LUN for a cluster can also be located on the same spindles as the system databases. This will not be an issue in most scenarios. However, if the RAID group were to become busy, there is a possibility that the cluster might see the quorum LUN as unavailable and cause a needless cluster failover. Therefore, it is important that the quorum LUN be located on a RAID group that will not become excessively busy. For the current solution, as the system databases are never put under much stress, it is acceptable to have the quorum LUN in the same RAID group as the system databases. Tempdb was isolated to its own two-spindle RAID 1/0 group as this is a recommended best practice from Microsoft. However, these spindles were seldom used as the TPC-C workload puts effectively zero workload on the tempdb database. The 15k rpm physical Fibre Channel disks are 146 GB in size with 133 GB of usable space. In a RAID 1/0 configuration, the disks are both mirrored and striped, which results in approximately half of the RAID group s capacity being lost to disk mirrors. Therefore, the capacity of a four-spindle RAID 1/0 group is approximately 266 GB, or (4 * 133 GB) / 2. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP 13

Solution Architecture Nine spindles were set up in a RAID 3 array to be used for backup and restore purposes. RAID 3 was used because it provides an excellent throughput for serial I/O per second (IOPS) and the backups are exclusively serial. Table 3 lists each file or activity type and indicates where it resides or is recorded. Table 3 Application file or activity types and locations File or activity type Location RAID level Total number of physical disks Database binary files CX3-40 RAID 1/0 6 TPC-C database CX3-40 RAID 1/0 4 logfiles TempDB files CX3-40 RAID 1/0 2 TPC-C database CX3-40 RAID 1/0 12 datafiles MSDTC 1 (optional) CX3-40 RAID 1/0 2 System database files CX3-40 RAID 1/0 2 Disk alignment By default, when Microsoft Disk Manager formats CLARiiON LUNs, it creates a partition starting at the 63rd sector. This misaligns the partition with the underlying storage subsystem, causing a greater I/O load than is necessary. To fix the misalignment, Microsoft provides a command line tool known as DISKPART.exe in Microsoft Windows 2003 Server. DISKPART can be used to set the starting offset value of the master boot record (MBR) of a basic disk. DISKPART is similar to DISKPAR.exe in the Windows 2000 Resource Kit. The primary difference between them is that DISKPAR uses sectors (one sector = 512 bytes) (offset=128) and DISKPART uses kilobytes (offset=64). create partition primary align=64 Setting the disk alignment to 64k significantly increases the I/O performance of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on the LUNs. In addition, the alignment at the virtualization layer must be considered. If the Virtual Infrastructure graphical interface is used to initialize the storage device, then the alignment is taken care of. If the command line is used, then follow the VMware-recommended method for aligning the storage device. 1 Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator. This software enables a single transaction to include data from multiple source locations. The software then coordinates the process of committing the transaction across the various locations. 14 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP

Solution Architecture Application server architecture Microsoft SQL Server 2005 architecture This section describes the application server architecture. The 4U ESX Server that houses the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 has two FC and six network interfaces. The FC interfaces connect to the SAN while one network interface connects to the client (public) network. Five network interfaces are made available for future needs. Additional network ports could be used to isolate certain types of traffic, to be fully allocated to a specific VM, or for teaming and load balancing, should any of these be needed. Table 4 lists each interface and describes its use. Table 4 Application server network interface configuration Interface port ID FC0 FC1 Eth0 Eth1 Eth2 Eth3 Eth4 Eth5 Description SAN connection SAN connection Public network Future use Future use Future use Future use Future use High availability and failover Storage layer Host layer Application architecture The validated solution provides protection at the storage and host layers. The CLARiiON CX3-40 has two storage processors to provide high availability and load balancing. In the validated solution, the two storage processors provide seamless failover capabilities for the storage. This minimizes disruption during maintenance or possible component failure. The RAID disk configuration on the CLARiiON back end provides protection against hard disk failures. The application hosts have redundant power supplies, FC connections, and network connections to reduce the impact of host hardware failure. In the event of a host failure, the guest VM will be automatically restarted on another node in the VMHA cluster. No special configuration settings were used for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 during the solution testing. All default settings were used for memory, processors, network, threads, and so on. The only exception being it was verified that the account under which the SQL Server service ran had the Lock Pages In Memory and the Perform Volume Maintenance Tasks user rights to allow the SQL Server to prevent pages from being swapped and to enable fast file initialization. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP 15

Solution Architecture 16 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP

Chapter 3 Hardware and Software Resources This chapter presents these topics: Hardware resources... 18 Software resources... 19 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP 17

Hardware and Software Resources Hardware resources The Microsoft SQL Server 2005 CX3 Series FC VMware ESX solution uses the hardware resources listed in Table 5. The hardware and software quantities listed do not include the DR site resources. For a more detailed list of the hardware used in the 1U and 4U servers, refer to the section Detailed Server Hardware Listing. Table 5 Hardware resources Hardware Quantity Configuration Notes 4U server One Four 2.8-GHz AMD Opteron dual-core processors 32 GB of memory 1U server One Two quad-core Intel 5300 series Xeon 16 GB of memory 1U server Two Two quad-core Intel 5300 series Xeon 4 GB of memory 1U server Three Two quad-core Intel 5300 series Xeon 16 GB of memory QLogic 5600 FC switch Two Sixteen 4 Gb/s FC ports Dell 6248 switch Two 48 copper 1 Gb/s ports EMC CLARiiON CX3-40 One Two SPs (storage processors) Two 4 Gb/s FC connections per SP Three FC shelves (DAE) Fifteen 146 GB (15k) FC disks per DAE RecoverPoint appliance Two Two RPAs in a RP cluster VMware ESX Server 3.5 VMware ESX Server 3.5 with Domain Controller and Monitoring Console VMs VMware VirtualCenter Server 2.5 running physical on Windows 2003 Server 32-bit R2 SP2 VMware ESX Server 3.5 with Benchmark Factory Client VMs FLARE 3.26 RecoverPoint 3.0 18 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP

Hardware and Software Resources Software resources The software resources used are listed in Table 6. Table 6 Software resources Software Number of licenses Configuration Store Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition, 64-bit R2 SP2 Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition, 32-bit R2 SP2 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise, 64-bit SP2 VMware ESX 3.5 VMware VirtualCenter Server 2.5 EMC Replication Manager 5.1 Varies One for each server / VM Two One One One One for each VMware VirtualCenter Server running on a Microsoft cluster One license per CPU socket One license per 1U and two licenses per 4U running ESX Must be physical, not in a VM One License per server Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP 19

Hardware and Software Resources 20 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP

Appendix A Detailed Server Hardware Listing This appendix presents this topic: Detailed server hardware listing... 22 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP 21

Detailed Server Hardware Listing Detailed server hardware listing Table 7 lists the server hardware. Table 7 Detailed server hardware listing Features Processors Chipset Front-side bus 1U servers Two quad-core Intel Clovertown 5300 series Xeon Intel 5000X Greencreek 1333 MHz I/O channels (5) PCI Express riser with 2x8 lane slots Intel PRO/1000 PT Quad Port network card QLogic QLE2462, 4 Gb/s FC card Memory 16 GB 667 MHz FBD, ECC RAID support PERC 5/i serial-attached SCSI RAID controller with 256 MB cache Video Embedded ATI RN50 with 16 MB memory Networking Dual-embedded Broadcom Gigabit NICs (5708) with TOE disabled Features 4U servers Processors Four dual-core AMD 8220 processors Chipset Broadcom HT-2100 and HT-1000 Server I/O controllers Front-side bus 1 GHz HyperTransport I/O channels (4) PCI Express expansion slots 2x8, 5x4 Intel PRO/1000 PT Quad Port network card (8-lane connector) QLogic QLE2462, 4 Gb/s FC card (8-lane connector) Memory 32 GB 667 MHz ECC RAID support PERC 5/i serial-attached SCSI RAID controller with 256 MB cache Video Integrated ATI ES1000 with 16 MB memory Networking Dual-embedded Broadcom Gigabit NICs (5708) with TOE disabled 22 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on Windows 2003 in VMware ESX Server EMC CLARiiON CX3 Series FCP