Lab Validation Report

Lab Validation Report HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server Accelerating Database Consolidation with Microsoft Hyper-V By Mike Leone, ESG Lab Engineer, and Brian Garrett, ESG Lab VP June 2012

Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 2 Contents Introduction... 3 The Road Ahead for Virtualization... 3 Overcoming Virtualization Concerns... 5 Virtualized SQL Server Deployments... 6 Microsoft Hyper-V... 7 Microsoft System Center... 7 Microsoft SQL Server... 7 HP Database Consolidation Appliance... 8 ESG Lab Validation... 9 Deployment and Manageability... 9 Performance and Scalability... 12 High Availability... 15 ESG Lab Validation Highlights... 17 Issues to Consider... 17 The Bigger Truth... 18 Appendix... 19 ESG Lab Reports The goal of ESG Lab reports is to educate IT professionals about data center technology products for companies of all types and sizes. ESG Lab reports are not meant to replace the evaluation process that should be conducted before making purchasing decisions, but rather to provide insight into these emerging technologies. Our objective is to go over some of the more valuable feature/functions of products, show how they can be used to solve real customer problems and identify any areas needing improvement. ESG Lab s expert third-party perspective is based on our own hands-on testing as well as on interviews with customers who use these products in production environments. This ESG Lab report was sponsored by Microsoft. All trademark names are property of their respective companies. Information contained in this publication has been obtained by sources The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) considers to be reliable but is not warranted by ESG. This publication may contain opinions of ESG, which are subject to change from time to time. This publication is copyrighted by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. Any reproduction or redistribution of this publication, in whole or in part, whether in hard-copy format, electronically, or otherwise to persons not authorized to receive it, without the express consent of The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., is in violation of U.S. copyright law and will be subject to an action for civil damages and, if applicable, criminal prosecution. Should you have any questions, please contact ESG Client Relations at 508.482.0188.

Introduction Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 3 This report summarizes the results of ESG Lab hands-on testing of the performance, scalability, and manageability of an HP Database Consolidation Appliance for SQL Server. The product leverages a Microsoft SQL Server appliance framework running in a private cloud that s virtualized by Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with Hyper-V server virtualization technology. The Road Ahead for Virtualization Many organizations are reaping the benefits of server virtualization, including lower IT capital and operational costs; greater IT efficiency; and improved application provisioning, maintenance, availability, and backup/recovery processes. The benefits of server virtualization appear to come in waves that are closely correlated with organizational experience and confidence with virtualization technology. As Figure 1 shows, organizations tend to move through three phases over time as they deploy server virtualization technology. Figure 1. The Virtualization Timeline Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2012. The first phase focuses on virtualizing IT-owned utilities and applications such as file and print services. The phase one goals are to reduce costs, simplify management, and consolidate resources. In the next phase, organizations begin to virtualize tier-2 applications such as Active Directory. As administrators gain confidence in virtualization technologies, they strive to improve agility and enhance the availability of IT services. However, as the organizations move toward being 100% virtualized, the performance, scalability, and reliability requirements of mission-critical tier-1 applications can inhibit virtualization growth. ESG research confirms that hesitation; according to research conducted with IT professionals, 59% of organizations have not yet virtualized their tier-1 applications, and they cite performance as a major reason. ESG recently conducted a survey asking respondents what factors were preventing their organizations from using virtualization technology more pervasively. As Figure 2 shows, the key concerns were budget and performance; of the 440 respondents, 23% stated lack of budget, while 22% remain concerned with performance issues. 1 1 Source: This data comes from a custom research project conducted by ESG on behalf of Microsoft on the topic of virtualization and private cloud trends in May 2012.

Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 4 Figure 2. Top Factors Preventing More Pervasive Virtualization Technology Usage In general, which of the following factors would you say are preventing your organization from using virtualization technology more pervasively? (Percent of respondents, N=440) Lack of budget 23% Performance issues 22% Legacy systems/applications running on non-supported platforms 21% Applications running on embedded systems or specialized hardware 19% Security concerns 19% Vendor licensing/pricing for virtual technologies 18% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2012. In addition to performance, multi-user applications present some additional challenges for virtualization, such as: Will the virtualized infrastructure scale as needs grow? Can we ensure that performance SLAs for virtualized business-critical applications will be met? Despite these virtualization challenges, experienced organizations with more mature virtualization deployments are rapidly moving beyond the initial benefits of consolidation, finding that more extensive use of virtualization can help improve application backup/recovery, bolster application availability, and automate IT processes. They have come to realize that the critical metrics in a virtual environment are those focused on availability and performance, and they measure the success of their virtualization efforts not only by their ability to reduce costs and increase efficiency, but also by their ability to meet application performance requirements. Because the benefits of virtualization are extremely compelling, ESG expects to see an increasing number of organizations looking for ways to leverage the technology for their tier-1 applications.

Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 5 Overcoming Virtualization Concerns ESG s data confirms that a massive wave of server virtualization expansion is well underway. For example, while 58% of organizations have virtualized 30% or less of their total population of servers today, 58% of organizations expect to have virtualized more than 40% of their servers 24 months from now. The data also indicates that more of these new virtual servers will be run in production environments. On average, the percentage of VMs run in production will increase from 39% today to 58% within two years. Figure 3 shows the results of a recent ESG survey that asked respondents to identify the extent to which their organization s 2012 spending for virtualization/private cloud infrastructure software will change relative to 2011. More than half (56%) of midmarket organizations expect their 2012 spending levels for virtualization technology to increase, while nearly three-quarters (73%) of their enterprise counterparts anticipate higher budget allocations for the technology compared with 2011.The consistent increases in budgetary funds allocated for virtualization spending reflect the continued growth in both usage and adoption as organizations regardless of size look to take advantage of the benefits offered by the technology. 2 Figure 3. 2012 Virtualization Spending Increases, by Company Size Percentage of organizations that will increase 2012 spending for virtualization/private cloud infrastructure software relative to 2011, by company size. (Percent of respondents) 80% 70% 73% 60% 56% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Midmarket (100 to 999 employees, N=77) Enterprise (1,000 or more employees, N=93) Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2012. 2 Source: ESG Research Report, Server 2012 IT Spending Intentions, January 2012

Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 6 Virtualized SQL Server Deployments Respondents to a recent ESG survey were asked to what extent their organization has deployed tier-2 database applications (i.e., Oracle Standard, Microsoft SQL, etc.) on virtual machines in a production environment. Of the 440 respondents, 50% had already deployed tier-2 database applications on production-based VMs, with 25% planning to in the near future (see Figure 4). 3 Figure 4. Production Environment Virtualized SQL Server Deployments To what extent has your organization deployed tier-2 database applications on virtual machines (VMs) running in a production environment? (Percentage of respondents, N=440) No plans to deploy on production VMs, 9% Don t know / not applicable, 2% No immediate plans to deploy on production VMs, but we would like to do so, 14% Already deployed on production VMs, 50% Plan to deploy on production VMs, 25% Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2012. For the more mature organizations surveyed that have deployed and are currently deploying virtualized database applications, uptime and performance are the two most important metrics in gauging the success of their virtualization deployments. Many of these early adopters have now virtualized entire infrastructures, including business-critical tier-1 applications such as SQL Server. In other words, application performance is a top criterion for virtualization success that is being addressed by the early adopters who have fully embraced server virtualization. 3 Source: This data comes from a custom research project conducted by ESG on behalf of Microsoft on the topic of virtualization and private cloud trends in May 2012.

Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 7 Microsoft Hyper-V Hyper-V is a bare-metal hypervisor that enables hosting of multiple virtual machines on the same physical server. The supported virtual machines can be a mixture of almost all Microsoft (server and desktop) platforms in addition to several Linux platforms. Hyper-V first became available as a capability of Windows Server 2008, and it was subsequently released as a free, standalone download called Hyper-V Server 2008. Using familiar interfaces and wizards, Hyper-V lets companies take advantage of existing Microsoft skill sets, training programs, and certifications. An updated R2 release was launched in July 2009. It provided a number of enhancements that improved performance, scalability, and agility of virtualized application workloads including Live Migration, Cluster Shared Volumes, and increased scale-out/scaleup workload support. The SP1 update, released in February 2011, added capabilities that enhance the density and scalability of virtual server environments (e.g., Dynamic Memory). Microsoft System Center System Center is a cloud and data center management solution providing common toolsets to manage both private and public cloud applications and deployments. System Center combines knowledge about systems, policies, processes, and best practices to aid in complete infrastructure optimization, helping to reduce costs, improve application availability, and enhance service delivery. Coupled with HP Insight Control, System Center enables IT administrators to automate provisioning, configuration, and deployment tasks through a fully integrated solution. Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server 2012 is a relational model database server that s used to develop and deploy database applications, improve IT and developer efficiency, and deliver highly scalable and manageable business intelligence services. As a key component of the cloud-ready information platform, SQL Server 2012 helps organizations quickly build solutions and unlock breakthrough insights across private and public clouds with confidence. Mission-critical Confidence enables mission-critical performance and availability. Breakthrough Insight unlocks new insights with rapid data exploration and visualization. Cloud on Your Terms allows for the fast creation and scaling of business solutions. New tools and enhancements in SQL Server 2012 provide innovative breakthroughs that can be leveraged throughout the organization. With new, cloud-ready technologies, customers remain agile and future-proof for application symmetry across servers, private clouds, and public clouds. New features include: AlwaysOn, which provides high availability and advanced disaster recovery. Column Store Index, which enables astonishingly fast speeds for common data warehouse queries. Power View/PowerPivot, which speeds data discovery with Excel-like functionality and familiarity. BI Semantic Model, which provides multiple ways of building business intelligence (BI) solutions.

Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 8 HP Database Consolidation Appliance The HP Database Consolidation Appliance (DBCA) for SQL Server (see Figure 5) leverages Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center management software, HP converged infrastructure, HP Insight Control management software, and world-class support and services to deliver a simple, scalable, turnkey solution that helps customers regain control of their SQL Server environments. The integrated hardware and software offering provides a simple, scalable solution that provides compute, storage, and network resources inside a single rack. By utilizing virtualization and large amounts of storage, operational costs are reduced, and performance is improved. An easy-to-use centralized management console is included to assist in provisioning, migration, and monitoring of your servers, while offering greater flexibility to customers. Figure 5. Hyper-V Enabled Database Consolidation Appliance for SQL Server Key advantages include: Reduced database sprawl with a fast and scalable solution that s fully virtualized with Hyper-V Accelerated time to value with a fully integrated, factory-built database consolidation solution Simplified management with HP Insight Control, Microsoft System Center, and the System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) Self-Service Portal 2.0 Reduced risk with coordinated world-class support from HP and Microsoft

ESG Lab Validation Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 9 ESG Lab performed hands-on evaluation and testing of the DBCA at Microsoft s EEC facility in Redmond, Washington. Testing was designed to demonstrate the ease of deployment, manageability, performance, scalability, and high availability of the DBCA while leveraging Hyper-V and System Center for a fully integrated, turnkey solution. Deployment and Manageability The DBCA is optimized for SQL Server by helping to simplify the deployment and management of a virtualized infrastructure and enabling the consolidation of hundreds of database workloads in a single virtual environment. The result is an easy-to-manage, cost-efficient solution that delivers agility to any sized business. IT administrators can manage and operate their virtualized data center by creating virtual machine templates for rapid deployment, configuring virtual machine settings to make the best use of hardware resources, and monitoring the health of the overall data center and individual virtual machines to ensure optimal performance. ESG Lab Testing Testing began with a tour of the pre-configured solution that was built in accordance with the Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track reference architecture. ESG Lab noted that key software components were pre-installed and configured, including Microsoft System Center, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with the built-in Hyper-V hypervisor, and HP Insight Control. Network and storage settings that were unique to the ESG Lab test environment were configured. Figure 6 shows the self-service provisioning ability of the appliance through System Center. Figure 6. Self-Service Provisioning Virtual machine templates are available to allow for a fast virtual deployment 12 default templates to choose from to meet small, medium, or large organizations requirements. Each template provides a standardized group of hardware and software settings that can be used repeatedly to create new virtual machines. Some templates, such as the one highlighted in Figure 6, are pre-optimized for SQL Server to leverage the integrated DBCA. If a preconfigured template does not meet a certain organizational need, new templates can easily be created and saved for future use. Figure 7 shows a topology view from SCVMM of a small piece of the ESG Lab test bed running on the half-rack DBCA. The virtual machine layout was divided among a single cluster of four physical blades that make up the half-

Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 10 rack appliance. Each blade was configured to house two client virtual machines and 80 SQL Server virtual machines, bringing the total number of SQL Server VMs used by ESG Lab to 320. Each client virtual machine was made up of four vcpus with 2GB of RAM and was responsible for generating OLTP workloads for 40 SQL Server VMs. The SQL Server virtual machines were running a mixture of SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2012, showing the compatibility between old and new SQL environments. Each SQL Server VM was assigned one vcpu and 2GB of RAM. Each VM was allotted 25GB of space from the SAN, made up of HP P2000 storage. Figure 7. SCVMM View of ESG Lab Test Bed SCVMM was used as a centralized console to manage the ESG Lab virtual environment. With a deployment of 320 VMs, manageability was concerning to ESG Lab, but this concern was quickly alleviated with SCVMM s ability to easily maneuver between every VM deployed. Figure 8 shows the view from SCVMM of the fully deployed test bed. Details about the first physical blade are enlarged to show the VM configurations. Memory and CPU allocation, as well as CPU utilization, are just a few of the resource settings that can be displayed and monitored in real time. Also, when highlighting a specific VM from the list, more information is displayed. A view of the VM s desktop is shown, as well as the ability to remote into the VM. Figure 8. Virtual Machine Manager

Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 11 Why This Matters ESG research indicates that server virtualization is the top IT priority over the next 12 to 18 months, and a growing number of organizations are moving from do it yourself to fully integrated solutions with a goal of simplifying management, reducing time to deployment, and lowering the total cost of ownership Management complexity continues to grow as user data and deployed applications proliferate within organizations. IT managers are being asked to address the situation (with IT budgets that are flat or declining), while continuing to support high service levels for growing organizations. A pressing need for better server management capabilities, including tightly integrated management tools for both physical and virtual environments, has never been more apparent. ESG Lab confirmed that the deployment and management of a DBCA was both quick and easy. Available templates made it easy to deploy an optimized SQL Server solution to meet the requirements for any sized organization. SCVMM made it easy to manage a large SQL Server infrastructure composed of 320 VMs. Real-time status of each physical and virtual resource was immediately available, which helped in fine-tuning resource allocation where necessary.

Transactions/sec Average Transaction Response Time (seconds) Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 12 Performance and Scalability The DBCA is built on a virtualization architecture that pools system resources together and optimizes SQL Server deployments for running hundreds to thousands of SQL Server databases. This helps to reduce database sprawl, as well as improve resource utilization. This creates a high-performing, scalable solution that fits tier-1 database performance requirements. ESG Lab Testing ESG Lab used an industry-standard OLTP workload to simulate the activity of Microsoft SQL Server users with a goal of demonstrating the performance and scalability of the DBCA hardware, the Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor, and the Microsoft SQL Server database engine. The workload was designed to emulate the database activity of users in a typical online brokerage firm as they generated trades, performed account inquiries, and did market research. The workload was composed of ten transaction types with a defined ratio of execution. Four of the transactions performed database updates; the rest were read-only. A 1,000-customer database was configured within each of the 320 SQL Server virtual machines with a goal of achieving linear scalability for the number of transactions per second as the number of consolidated SQL Server VMs increased from 40 to 320. The workload generated a high level of I/O activity with small access sizes and spent a lot of execution time at the operating system kernel level. These characteristics, combined with a large, cacheresident working set, created a workload that was well suited for evaluating the performance efficiency and scalability of the DBCA. The transactions per second and average response time for the ten transaction types were monitored as the number of databases (and therefore VMs) increased. The results are summarized in Figure 9 and Table 1. Figure 9. Hyper-V SQL Server Workload Scalability Hyper-V SQL Server Workload Scalability (OLTP Workload, HP Database Consolidation Appliance for SQL Server (half-rack) 16,000 1.0 14,000 12,000 0.8 10,000 0.6 8,000 6,000 4,000 2,000 0 40 80 120 160 200 240 280 320 Hyper-V Virtual Machines 0.4 0.2 0.0

SQL Batch Requests/Sec Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 13 Table 1. Hyper-V SQL Server Workload Scalability Virtual Machines Database Scale (Total Customers) Transactions/Sec (Total) SQL Server Batch Requests/Sec (Total) Average Transaction Response (Seconds) 40 40,000 2,626 4,120.02 80 80,000 4,527 7,920.03 120 120,000 6,147 12,240.03 160 160,000 7,796 15,840.03 200 200,000 9,768 20,200.03 240 240,000 11,365 24,240.03 280 280,000 13,048 28,560.03 320 320,000 14,955 32,960.03 What the Numbers Mean Each of the 320 virtual machines was populated with a Microsoft SQL Server database supporting 1,000 brokerage customers. The virtual machines were configured with one virtual CPU and 2GB of RAM with a goal of balancing the utilization of all the available physical server resources during the peak 320 VM test. Transactions per second increased from 2,626 to 14,955 as the number of virtual machines running on the DBCA increased from 40 to 320. Response times were measured at the database transaction level for a workload composed of a mix of read-only and read-write transactions. Ten transaction types generated between two and 17 table accesses each, with each table access requiring one or more disk accesses. ESG Lab recorded impressively low average transaction response times between.02 and.03 seconds. As Figure 10 shows, an aggregate performance of 32,960 SQL Server batch requests per second was recorded during the 320 virtual machine test. To put this into perspective, Microsoft documentation indicates that over 1,000 batch requests per second indicate a very busy SQL Server. 4 Of course, this is a relative number that depends on the power of the hardware used to deploy SQL Server applications. Figure 10. Hyper-V SQL Server Batch Request Scalability 35,000 30,000 25,000 20,000 15,000 10,000 5,000 0 Hyper-V Enabled SQL Batch Request Scalability OLTP Workload, HP Database Consolidation Appliance for SQL Server (half-rack) 40 80 120 160 200 240 280 320 Hyper-V Virtual Machines 4 http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=64044

What the Numbers Mean Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 14 SQL Server batch requests increased from 4,120 to 32,960 as the number of virtual machines running on the DBCA increased from 40 to 320. Each VM averaged around 100 SQL Server batch requests per second in each test scenario. With no resource limitations, performance was predictable and scaled linearly, as measured in increments of 40 VMs. Why This Matters Database health is critical to business managers, application owners, and enterprise IT teams. Figuratively, the lifeblood of an organization resides in its database servers. Take away the ability to reliably run enterprise applications or complete customer transactions and watch business come to a standstill. At IT organizations supporting large numbers of users, hesitation to implement virtualization stems in part from the perception that it adds overhead and won t allow performance to scale predictably, particularly when it comes to multi-user, business-critical applications relied upon by the majority of the business. ESG Lab confirmed that the efficiency and scalability of Hyper-V and the HP Database Consolidation Appliance can be used to consolidate SQL Server workloads with confidence. ESG Lab deployed OLTP SQL Server 2012 workloads in up to 320 Hyper-V virtual machines in a half-rack appliance while sustaining near-linear performance scalability and excellent sub-second transaction response times. ESG research further validates the value of deploying SQL in a virtualized environment, with 50% of respondents having already deployed database applications (i.e., Microsoft SQL), and an additional 25% having plans or interest in deploying virtual machines in production.

High Availability Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 15 The database consolidation appliance is engineered with high availability in mind. All hardware components are redundant, down to the communication links and paths. Even the virtualized infrastructure offers protection against failure through host-level clustering. Live migration can be used to move live VMs from one host node to another to perform host-level maintenance without taking the VMs offline. ESG Lab Testing ESG Lab tested the high availability of a DBCA by simulating a lost physical server during an OLTP workload performance test. The goal of the test was to witness a migration of the VM immediately upon physical server failure. The VM migrated to another available physical server in the DBCA, while the performance test continued running. Figure 11 shows the failure and transition through System Center s management interface. Figure 11. High Availability Test At the top of the figure, a workload started running on SQL001 VM, which used physical server MMS-03-BLD1 (Blade 1) (highlighted in the top image). Once the workload hit a steady state, utilizing 16% of the processing power, Blade 1 was rebooted. The middle image shows the alert through System Center giving a status of Needs Attention after the reboot occurred. Within seconds, SQL001 migrated to MMS-03-BLD2. This can be seen in the bottom image. Blade2 is highlighted, showing SQL001, still at 16% CPU utilization, up and running.

Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 16 Why This Matters The realities of time and budget constraints require many organizations to implement different data-protection strategies to handle different scenarios (e.g., disaster recovery, backups, restores, and data migrations). This can result in protection gaps that leave data vulnerable. Regardless of the hardware failures that may occur during the lifecycle of electronically stored information, organizations expect their data always to be available with the click of a button. ESG Lab confirmed that the DBCA hardware configuration is designed to meet a goal of eliminating any single point of failure by employing numerous techniques to ensure high availability at the hardware and software level. ESG Lab was able to maintain a SQL Server VM running an OLTP workload through an accidental reboot of the physical server running that VM. The VM automatically migrated to another physical server and the SQL Server application continued without error.

Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 17 ESG Lab Validation Highlights ESG Lab tested the performance and scalability of the Hyper-V enabled HP Database Consolidation Appliance for SQL Server with an industry-standard OLTP workload deployed in up to 320 SQL Server 2012 VMs. Performance scaled linearly up to 897,300 transactions per minute with excellent average transaction response times of 0.03 seconds. A peak rate of 32,960 SQL Server batch requests per second was sustained during ESG Lab testing. ESG Lab confirmed that a factory-built HP appliance powered by Hyper-V and managed with System Center reduces deployment time from months to days. System Center and the SCVMM Self-Service Portal 2.0 simplified the policy-based based provisioning and management of a consolidated pool of SQL Server instances. High availability was confirmed with an OLTP workload running on a SQL Server VM deployed in a physical blade server that was powered off. The SQL VM failed over automatically to another server, and the OLTP application continued without error. Issues to Consider ESG Lab did not encounter a CPU, memory, or storage utilization bottleneck during testing, which demonstrated predictable performance and scalability for hundreds of Hyper-V enabled SQL Server 2012 VMs on a half-rack HP Database Consolidation Appliance. ESG Lab is confident that higher levels of consolidation and performance can be achieved with a different mix of SQL application workloads or more importantly, different hardware configurations. The DBCA can scale up to ten full racks, allowing it to fulfill the performance requirements of all organization sizes. Capacity planning and performance analysis of existing SQL Server applications is recommended, not only to determine if a SQL Server workload is suitable for virtualization, but also to plan the amount of processor, memory, and network resources that need to be configured within each virtual machine.

The Bigger Truth Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 18 A growing number of organizations are looking beyond the basic benefits of consolidation that were realized as the first wave of server virtualization crashed over the shores of the IT industry in recent years. Looking toward the next wave, increased use of server virtualization remains the top IT priority for the next 12 to 18 months, according to a recent ESG survey. While server virtualization adoption continues to gain momentum, IT organizations still have numerous hurdles to overcome in order to move closer to a 100% virtualized data center. ESG s data indicates that many organizations struggle with concerns over performance, scalability, technology complexity, integration, security, organizational confusion, and a basic lack of knowledge and skills that they believe will be the byproducts of virtualizing tier-1 environments. With these challenges in mind, forward-looking IT professionals are deploying integrated virtualization solutions. An integrated virtualization solution that leverages industry-standard best practices and blueprints reduces risk, time, and costs. While only 10% of organizations surveyed by ESG have deployed an integrated solution to date, twothirds expressed interest in the value of a fully integrated solution. ESG Lab has confirmed that the HP Database Consolidation Appliance for SQL Server is a turnkey database consolidation solution that s ideally suited to meet the challenges of database sprawl. The cost, complexity, and risk associated with building a solution from scratch was dramatically reduced with a half rack of HP hardware that was factory configured and tested in accordance with Microsoft SQL Server best practices. End-to-end management and policy-based self-service provisioning was simplified with a fully integrated set of tools including Microsoft System Center and HP Insight Control. ESG Lab was particularly impressed with the performance and scalability of the solution as up to 320 SQL Server instances were virtualized with Hyper-V on a half-rack appliance. Consolidating SQL Server applications on a Hyper-V enabled appliance enables businesses to overcome complexity and scalability concerns as they lower costs and increase the agility and availability of a consolidated IT infrastructure. With the performance and scalability of Hyper-V, which is built into Windows Server 2008 R2, IT organizations can lower costs and benefit from existing skill sets by using tools that are already familiar to their staffs. Purchasing, deployment, management, and support are simplified with a fully integrated solution that s supported by HP and Microsoft. So if you re looking to catch the next wave of virtualization and accelerate your journey to the cloud with a costeffective and scalable solution that s integrated from the ground up, ESG recommends that you call your local HP representative to learn more about Hyper-V and the HP Database Consolidation Appliance for SQL Server.

Appendix Lab Validation: HP Database Consolidation Appliance for Microsoft SQL Server 19 Table 2. ESG Lab Test Bed Hypervisor Native O/S Guest O/S Database Server Storage Network Software Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with Hyper-V Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Enterprise (64-bit) Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Enterprise (64-bit) Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and 2012 (64-bit) Hardware HP ProLiant BL465 G7 with eight processors, 96 cores, 1024GB RAM C3000 enclosure Two HP P2000 G3 iscsi MSA Array Six HP D2700 drive shelves Total (198) 146GB 15K SFF disks, 29TB raw capacity Network RAID-10 over hardware 4+1 RAID-5 volumes Two Flex-10 Modules (10GbE iscsi SAN) Client Virtual Machine Configuration Total # of VMs 8 CPU Four virtual CPUs per VM RAM 2GB per VM Storage Direct-attached iscsi (SAN) SQL Server Virtual Machine Configuration Total # of VMs 320 CPU One virtual CPU per VM RAM 1GB per VM Storage Direct-attached iscsi (SAN)

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