Simple Strategies for Cutting the Cost of High Availability and Disaster Recovery for SQL

Clusters Your Way.™

SQL Server HA and DR:

A Simple Strategy for Realizing Dramatic Savings

Joey D’Antoni


Joey D’Antoni

Joey has over 15 years of experience with a wide variety of data platforms, in both Fortune

50 companies as well as smaller organizations

He is a frequent speaker on database administration, big data, and career management

He is the co-president of the Philadelphia SQL Server User’s Group

He wants you to make sure you can restore your data

Joedantoni.wordpress.com – Blog

Joey D’Antoni

Joey D’Antoni


Requirements for SQL Server High Availability

and Disaster Recovery

Three Step Strategy for Saving SQL HA and DR Costs

Saving Licensing Costs

Saving SAN Hardware Costs

Cost Summary

Agenda

3


Three Requirements for HA and DR:

SQL Server Software HA/DR Features

Replication for DR

Clusters for High Availability

SQL Server High Availability

and Disaster Recovery

SQL HA & DR

Features

Replication for DR

Clustersfor HA

Protection

4


Savings

1. Provide HA and DR with SQL Server

Standard Edition Licensing $74,096

2. Reduce the Cost of Software Assurance $35,888

3. Eliminate SAN-based Clusters TCO $735,944

Total $845,928

Simple Strategy for Cutting Costs

5


VS.SAN-based cluster SIOS #SANLess

cluster

Add SIOS #SANLess Software to a SQL Server WSFC

Host-based, block-level replication synchronizes

local storage in primary and standby servers

Manage replication and recovery at the host OS level

Implementing the Strategy:

#SANLess Clusters

6


Provides HA and DR with SQL Server Standard Edition

Reduces the Cost of Software Assurance

Eliminates the Need for SAN Storage

Adds Configuration Flexibility

Enables Use of High Performance SSD

Implementing the Strategy:

#SANLess Clusters

7


1. Provide HA and DR with SQL Server

Standard Edition Licensing

8


× HA and DR drawbacks

• Database Mirroring

– Marked for deprecation in SQL

Server 2012

– Labor-intensive manual

maintenance

• High Safety Mode

– Slows performance on the

primary server,

– Poorly suited for mirroring data

over long distances or over

higher latency connections

SQL Server Standard Edition

Cost Effective Licensing

• No significant changes from

2008R2/2012 licensing

• Buy a CAL for each user in your

company and then license each

server for a nominal fee

• $898 Per Server+$209 per CAL

• High availability included

9


Before SQL Server 2012:

License either by sockets,

or by server (one CAL per user)

$54,000 (list)

SQL Enterprise Edition Licensing Costs

Have Nearly Doubled

Since SQL Server 2012:

License by cores $82,488 (list)

– Costs increase dramatically on larger servers

One SQL Enterprise Edition license

for 2 sockets, 6-core processor

10


2. Reduce the Cost of Software Assurance

11


Adds up to 25% in Annual Recurring Costs

Required for:

Cold DR licensing — Create a standby site for DR

without purchasing an additional license

License mobility — Licenses float from one physical

machine to another, needed for VM environments

License upgrades — Upgrade from SQL Server

Standard Edition to Enterprise Edition, without

repurchasing the base license

Software Assurance

12


SQL Server software can be configured so that if one server

fails, its processing will be picked up, recovered and continued

by another server. Beginning with SQL Server 2014, each

active server licensed with SA coverage allows the installation

of a single passive server used for failover support.

April 1, 2014 Licensing Document

Surprise!

13


Licensing Costs

14


SQL Server Private Cloud (Virtualization)

Use Standard Edition

Consolidate Your SQL Server Instances

Development Environments and MSDN

Development Instances

Large organizations - may be worth licensing developers

with MSDN

It can be much cheaper than buying real licenses

Or develop under Developer Edition

Additional Ways to Reduce Licensing Costs

15


3. Eliminate SAN-based Clusters TCO

16


Storage array-based replication is complex and

expensive for DR

WSFC shared storage cannot span multiple sites

Storage array-based replication can be used for multisite

protection – requires identical SANs in primary and recovery

site

Expensive, vendor lock in, may require the purchase of

additional software from the SAN vendor

Why Not Use SAN Replication for DR?

17


5-Year SAN TCO1

$387,068 for small SANs

$735,944, for mid-tier storage arrays

#SANLess Clusters Eliminate

specialized SAN labor expenses

Standard server hardware

Low-cost, easy-to-configure, local

storage and WSFC.

Intuitive configuration wizard and

management console

Storage Costs: SAN vs #SANLess

Notes:

1 Kaufmann, Aviv, and Mike Leone, “Dell EqualLogic PS Series Storage and TCO Analysis,” Enterprise Strategy Group Lab Repor

t. January 2014. http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/extras/m/white_papers/20438150/download.aspx

18


Replicate between SAN or #SANLess clusters

Any combination of physical, virtual, or cloud (public,

private, or cloud)

#SANLess Clusters Add Flexibility

19


Save more than $800,000 dollars in license costs and

SAN five-year TCO

Easy, cost-effective alternative to traditional clusters

– a software ingredient in WSFC

Enable far more configuration flexibility than is possible in a

SAN-based cluster

#SANLess clusters save

hundreds of thousands of dollars

20


Joey D’Antoni

Solutions Architect, Anexinet

@jdanton on Twitter

[email protected]

Joedantoni.wordpress.com

Questions?

© 2014 SIOS Technology Corp. All rights reserved. SIOS, SIOS Technology, SIOS DataKeeper and SIOS Protection Suite and associated logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of SIOS Technology Corp. and/or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SIOS:

www.us.sios.com

Toll Free (US) : 866.381.0108

Main : +1.650.645.7000

Fax : +1.650.645.7030

Email: [email protected]

21

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.us.sios.com/

mailto:[email protected]