Let’s discuss Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery for SQL Server at Microsoft Ignite

[HPE_Alliances]

By Bharath Ram Ramanathan

You’ve got to admit it’s a timely topic. Names like Harvey, Irma, and Maria have made it so. Same with the unnamed earthquake in and around Mexico City. But the headlines for this round of disasters seem especially attention-getting. Power restoration defined in weeks or months, rather than days. An entire U.S. territory’s power grid totally wiped out. Buildings made uninhabitable. Damage still difficult to accurately assess, because of its severity and scope. So naturally, Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) have become top of mind, especially for applications like Microsoft SQL Server that power today’s data-driven enterprises. 

The bad news is that disasters are not going away.

The good news is that HPE has an end-to-end Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery plan that can help organizations of all types deal with them, delivering the data protection and recovery capabilities that are a perfect fit for a range of criticalities and budgets. Plus, the BC/DR strategy isn’t just a “stand by” plan in which organizations invest on a BC/DR infrastructure and put it to use only when there is a disaster.  In fact, our strategy makes it possible for enterprises to leverage the BC/DR infrastructure for complementing key use-cases in an SQL Server environment’s DEV-TEST/QA/Dev-ops (call it Copy-data-management) and Backup-Recovery-Archival, thereby providing organizations invaluable ROI at the DR site.

 We’ll be offering a variety of ways for you to learn about BC/DR for SQL Server: viewing demos, attending theater sessions, or speaking with me in-person at the event. 

 HPE Storage has BC/DR covered

 Our approach makes use of the 3PAR primary storage, Recovery Manager Central (RMC), StoreOnce and HPE Cloud Bank storage for AWS/Azure/Scality portfolio to deliver the capabilities enterprises need to ensure access to their data, regardless of the disaster.

• RPO and RTO, From a SQL DB/Instance level protection, RMC orchestrates application consistent snapshots at the local site for easy recovery when needed which enables Business Continuity in case of DB corruption/accidental deletion, etc. 3PAR’s Remote Copy Replication features modes such as Synchronous (OR) Asynchronous Streaming delivers near-instantaneous failover and delivering unbeatable RPO/RTO from a DR perspective.
• Easy Point-in-time recovery. In addition to the above point, HPE RMCfor SQL allows Microsoft SQL DBAs to create, schedule and manage SQL-application consistent snapshots on a 3PAR array. With RMC, local SQL consistent snapshots can be shipped to and stored on other 3PARs at remote sites (DR) enabling point-in-time recovery possible from a BC/DR perspective.
• Copy Data Management at DC/DR. RMC manages fast-clones of the SQL Server database at local/remote sites, enabling Test-Dev, QA, Reporting, etc., use-cases with no impact to the production workloads, hence acting as a Copy Data Management platform
• Transparent Database Backups at DR site with NO impact to PROD. The RMC for SQL Express Protect feature enables backup of SQL snapshot data from HPE 3PAR to StoreOnce, independent of backup server software. This enables SQL consistent OFFSITE backup from the secondary 3PAR’s Remote Snapshots to a StoreOnce Backup appliance. As a result, the backup workload does not impact the Database Production Server at all, nor the Primary 3PAR array. It is all completely transparent to the SQL Server PROD DB. Traditional backups impact the DB transactions per sec to the tune of ~5x vs. zero impact from RMC to the SQL Server workload.
• Archival of SQL Server backup data into Cloud in deduplicated format. With enterprises looking to move data into the cloud for Archival/Redundancy purposes by completely moving away from Tape Vaulting practices, HPE Cloud Bank offers the capability to move backup data stored on StoreOnce appliance into the enterprise’s Cloud Service Provider of choice – be it AWS or Azure in a deduplicated format - at the cost of $0.001 per GB/month or lower. If the company prefers to build an on-premises private cloud based archival tier, SCALITY RING can be used as a deep-archival tier, after which the data can be moved into AWS (OR) Azure (OR) both!

 Let’s create the BC/DR plan/design

I will be showcasing HPE Storage’s BC/DR/Copy Data Management/BURA capabilities for SQL Server at Microsoft Ignite 2017. It’s the ideal opportunity for you to see exactly what the HPE approach can do for you. HPE storage will have a significant presence at the event and I will also be presenting solutions from the newly-acquired Nimble storage organization.

 I also encourage you to stop by the HPE Booth #701 if you’d like to discuss your SQL Server DR challenges and goals with me in person.

 For more information

Here are a few resources that will provide you with more information on some of the topics I’ll be discussing at Microsoft Ignite:

• Video: Overview and demo of HPE Cloud Bank Storage
• Blog: “The Hottest Release Yet: RMC 4.0 Now Available for Flash”
• Blog: “HPE Cloud Bank Storage: A Data Protection Solution You Can Bank On”

 Visit the HPE Microsoft Ignite site for complete information about the event. More information about all of the impressive HPE – Microsoft joint solutions is available on our Strategic Alliance site,

 Bharath Ram Ramanathan is a Storage Solutions SME and a member of the Worldwide Technical Marketing organization in HPE storage. He is responsible for bringing Oracle, MS SQL and Backup Software’s application context into HPE Storage’s portfolio spanning the 3PAR, Nimble, RMC, StoreOnce and HPE Cloud Bank products. Bharath works closely with Presales, Sales and Channel Partners to ensure the success of HPE Storage products through training delivery, tek-talks, best practice sharing, whitepaper and collateral creation, direct deal support, Industry event presence etc. He has been with Hewlett Packard Enterprise for over 8 years.