Running on the HPE Alletra Storage MP platform, Microsoft SQL Server on HPE GreenLake for Block Storage brings the cloud experience on prem. Learn how it’s easier to use, offers more visibility for DBAs, creates a pay-per-use infrastructure, and delivers a performance boost over legacy storage.
–By Mike Harding, Manager, Microsoft and Industry Solutions, HPE Storage
When a cloud comes to you, it sounds like something sinister – a rolling haze in a horror movie, or maybe just something uncomfortable like a cold fog blanketing San Francisco on summer evenings. But in this case, we’re talking about taking a look at a Microsoft SQL Server deployment using HPE GreenLake for Block
HPE GreenLake for Block Storage delivers the cloud experience in terms of agility and ease-of-use, yet beneath the simple GUIs, it still has the guaranteed data availability that HPE storage is known for – making it the right choice for mission-critical databases and applications.
How SQL Server traveled to the cloud while staying at home
Our engineers have recently been in the lab working with the HPE GreenLake for Block Storage service. Still fairly new, customers (and even our engineers) are getting comfortable with the idea of accessing and managing on-premises storage infrastructure via a self-service web interface. This storage-as-a-service offering has brought traditional block storage into the cloud era. IT teams are just now realizing what this means for administration, training, and cost – all of which have been significantly reduced thanks to this new innovative approach from HPE Storage.
The solution team focused on a SQL Server deployment on HPE GreenLake for Block Storage. The project also shone the spotlight on the new underlying hardware platform – the . This is our newest storage platform and the industry’s first disaggregated, scale-out block storage with 100% data availability guaranteed. The hardware works with the as-a-service management layer, forming an easy-to-purchase, provision and manage service, accessed as a ‘tile’ on the HPE GreenLake Data Services Cloud Console (DSCC).
But enough name dropping. We just wanted to document and share what all this meant for the IT infrastructure admin or DBA who had to provision and manage a single-instance SQL Server database solution. That was the project, and the resulting technical whitepaper is now available.
SQL Server testing – the view from 60,000 feet
From up above the clouds, the view of the benefits of our newest storage offerings is pretty clear. HPE GreenLake for Block Storage, powered by the HPE Alletra Storage MP, provides cost-effective, high-performance storage for SQL Server database deployments. The as-a-service approach adds ease of use and cloud on-demand agility. The new HPE Alletra Storage MP holds the potential for letting every enterprise be their own hyperscaler, designed to support multi-protocol, software defined usage.
HPE Alletra Storage MP is the new common hardware platform.
But we wanted to see it up close – particularly the hands-on experience of a typical enterprise database deployment. The expectations around Microsoft SQL Server implementations have grown, whether in terms of performance, hybrid cloud use cases, or just user experience. So we stepped through the process of provisioning SQL Server using HPE GreenLake for Block Storage, to see how it matches up.
The work in the lab, captured in a technical deployment guide just published, starts with some networking and O/S prerequisites and how to navigate the new DSCC. The work continues with host group creation and the storage provisioning process.
Intent-based storage provisioning is a feature that handles resource assignment in a way that no longer requires the level of Storage expertise as in the past. A workload is simply selected from a pull down menu. In this case, the storage platform is optimized for a SQL Server workload, with among other things, specific storage configurations made automatically for data efficiency settings (e.g. deduplication, compression). In addition, there’s the ability at that time to easily add data protection policies to the provisioned workload volumes. The details in the technical whitepaper continue with the database installation, testing, and observations related dashboard analytics.
The takeaway from the solution engineering exercise is that the administration of HPE GreenLake for Block Storage provides an easy user experience for managing otherwise complex solutions. Provisioning storage can now be assigned to users, such as a SQL Server database administrator (DBA), to set-up their own storage.
HPE GreenLake for Block Storage, with intelligent features like intent-based provisioning, enabled quick storage provisioning for SQL Server databases. Observations about the advantages include:
- Easy management of multiple storage types from a single pane of glass
- Ability to easily configure hosts and host groups from the same interface used to manage storage
- Storage performance-tuning parameters have been simplified
- Cloud-based management (DSCC, et al.) eliminates aspects of storage O/S maintenance
Measuring database performance through the cloud
In addition to providing a cloud-operational model, HPE Alletra Storage MP has been tuned to support faster decision-making by accelerating data analytics. A set of performance tests was run using an industry-standard benchmark to show run-time improvements for SQL Server on this latest hardware (versus what is typically in use across the installed base).
In a separate project, performance testing was conducted used the leading benchmarking and load testing software, HammerDB, to run an analytics TPROC-H workload. The SQL Server testing showed 53% less time required for SQL OLAP queries on the HPE Alletra Storage MP systems vs. HPE 3PAR 8440 storage systems.
And along with the performance gains, it was useful to note that this performance was delivered with the new 2U systems, vs, the legacy 4U platforms. Thus, not only was the query time halved but so was the hardware required (and the related space, energy and cooling expense).
Performance testing of HPE Alletra Storage MP shows SQL Server queries running in half the time.
I can see clearly now…
After the dust settled, it was clear that HPE GreenLake for Block Storage provides a smoothly integrated platform for enterprise databases such as Microsoft SQL Server. The service manages to bring cloud agility with other benefits like expanded access and visibility for DBAs, and pay-as-you-grow economics that help preserve the IT budget. All while working with safe, secure on-prem storage, in this case HPE Alletra Storage MP, with mission-critical 100% data availability guaranteed.
To learn more, read the new deployment guide: SQL Server deployment using HPE GreenLake for Block Storage built on HPE Alletra Storage MP
Meet Storage Experts blogger Mike Harding, Manager, Microsoft and Industry Solutions, HPE Storage
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