Aim high: Linux-based high availability for SQL Server 2017 on HPE Synergy

[TechExperts]

Are you considering standardizing your infrastructure on Linux? Do you have SQL Server deployments and want optimal infrastructure deployment, simplified manageability, and high availability? Consider HPE’s solution for SQL Server on Linux using HPE Serviceguard on HPE Synergy.

If you are like many customers today, you may have a requirement to standardize on Linux and expect mission-critical capabilities of your infrastructure and applications therein. And you may be considering SQL server deployments on Linux for a variety of reasons: To consolidate SQL server pools or to build new run-time applications, to get better transaction performance while considering migration of older version of SQL server on older infrastructure, or for reasons realted to migration from Oracle to SQL server.

With the release of SQL Server® 2017 on Linux, Microsoft provides choices for when you looking the right platform to run data and applications on Linux. HPE supports both Red Hat® Enterprise Linux and SUSE for deployment of SQL Server on Linux.

With these configurations, you may have to deal with some of the challenges that come when deploying infrastructure and applications in a mission-critical environment involving SQL server, such as:

• Overprovisioned infrastructure and provisioning time—To meet long term needs, the current infrastructure is often overprovisioned, thus adding to CapEx and OpEx.
• Management complexity—Management of multiple components needs multiple tools. This complicates infrastructure maintenance.
• High availability—This is key element when considering data.

How the HPE Reference Configuration can help address key concerns

Here is where the HPE Reference Configuration for Linux-based high availability for SQL Server 2017 on HPE Synergy comes in as handy. This Reference Configuration helps tackle any issues around infrastructure provisioning, manageability, and high availability.

HPE Synergy enables optimal infrastructure deployment. We simplify manageability using HPE OneView. This accelerates Microsoft SQL Server database deployment and simplifies updates. HPE Serviceguard for Linux provides High Availability and Disaster Recovery capabilities to SQL Server Always On availability groups. It reduces the planned downtime for maintenance by keeping the application running on another node.

                                                  Figure 1. Three-node synchronous deployment with SQL server

Let’s take a closer look at specific components:

• HPE Synergy Composer and HPE Synergy Image Streamer are used to create deployment plans to install and configure a SQL Server instance as well as HPE Serviceguard cluster with SQL Server. The fluid resource pools and software-defined intelligence of HPE Synergy allows administrators to rapidly compose any configuration required, reducing deployment time from hours or days down to minutes. In our testing, a server profile defined in the HPE Synergy Composer, can use that deployment plan to configure a new server in a matter of minutes, compared to hours or days utilizing traditional infrastructure.
• HPE Synergy Composer with embedded HPE OneView seamlessly manages the entire environment. This includes configuration of network resources required for SQL Server compute nodes, and deployment of OS and application software on the compute nodes
• High availability is the key element for mission-critical enterprise solutions, especially as it relates to data. In Windows deployments with SQL server, Always On depends on Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) for distributed metadata storage solutions, failure detection and failover orchestration. In Linux environments, Always On availability groups would also require a cluster manager to perform various critical tasks like monitoring the health of databases, server, network, storages, virtualization layer, virtual machine guests, and operating systems. HPE provides a cluster management tool in the HPE Serviceguard product, with SQL Server cluster support built in. HPE Serviceguard for Linux brings mission-critical class robustness to SQL Server deployments, ensuring robust monitoring, reliable actions, and protection against data loss. This market-leading high availability and disaster recovery clustering solution protects your applications from a multitude of infrastructure and application faults across physical or virtual environments over any distance. It reduces the impact of unplanned downtime without compromising data integrity and performance. It helps you achieve near-zero planned downtime for maintenance

The reference configuration provides instructions for creating a golden image, operating system build plan, and operating system deployment plan. It utilizes the plan scripts for using Image Streamer to deploy below configuration:

• Microsoft SQL Server instance on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.4
• Three-node HPE Serviceguard cluster for SQL Server availability group high-availability solution on RHEL 7.4.

This reference configuration shows how to deploy a Serviceguard protected Always On instance of SQL Server on RHEL 7.4.

Ready to make the high availability move?

The HPE Reference Configuration for Linux-based high availability for SQL Server 2017 on HPE Synergy addresses key requirements of infrastructure provisioning, manageability and high availability.

To learn more, please refer to this Reference Configuration and others in the HPE Information Library. Please contact your HPE representative for further details.

---

Meet Infrastructure Insights blogger Rahul Raturi, System/Software Engineer, HPE. Rahul has a decade of experience in the IT industry. Currently, he is a Software Engineer on the HPE Solution Engineering Team, which is focused on creating Solution Reference Architectures for enterprise use cases. He has previously worked as a SQL server DBA. 

Infrastructure Insights
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

 @HPE_Servers
 linkedin.com/company/hewlett-packard-enterprise