This year’s HPE Discover is happening live and in person in Las Vegas, on June 28-30. We’ll be there presenting a business breakout session on Meeting Customer-Critical Data Management Challenges with HPE and
Microsoft SQL Server with brand new demos on Azure Arc and the yet-to-be-released SQL Server 2022.
The session will feature demos delivered by none other than Microsoft’s Bob Ward, the principal architect of SQL Server. (More details on the session demos a few paragraphs down!)
What’s up with SQL Server
Here in the HPE Storage team, we know that SQL Server is the #1 business application across HPE 3PAR/HPE Primera and HPE Nimble Storage installed bases. And outside of our walls, we’re told that 98% of Fortune 100 companies run production workloads on SQL Server (source: SQL Pass Summit keynote). It’s because of this popularity that when SQL Server end-of-support milestones come up, it’s a big deal for the IT world.
There’s an important end-of-support date approaching. If it affects you, you needed to have been planning for it: SQL Server 2012 will reach end of extended support in just a few weeks – July 12, 2022. It’s estimated that this will impact as many as one out of 10 SQL Server customers. What’s more likely is that you’re running SQL Server 2016, which is past mainstream support, and is a year into extended support. Though not yet at the end of your rope, it’s still time to be planning your next move.
If you who want to keep your important databases and related applications in your own data centers, consider these three main options:
- Refresh to SQL Server 2019 on HPE Infrastructure – HPE delivers a broad range of infrastructure solutions for SQL Server, from departmental to mission-critical scale-up. You also have the ability to buy it all as a service through HPE GreenLake.
- Purchase Extended Support – Extended security updates are available if you need more time to plan and execute your upgrade beyond the end of support. But it can be costly: an additional 75% of SQL Server license price in year one, 100% in year two, 125% in year three.
- Run SQL Server on Azure Stack HCI – If you haven’t considered this, now’s the time, because you get to keep your SQL Server on-prem while getting the Azure cloud-connected benefits of hybrid cloud infrastructure. And if that’s not enough, Microsoft is offering extended security updates included for free! HPE-validated solutions are now available on both HPE Apollo 4200 Gen10 and Gen10 Plus systems, and various HPE ProLiant server models, as well as an integrated (i.e. pre-installed appliance) HPE GreenLake offering. Tested configurations and more info online here.
Scale-up your SQL Server with HPE
No database is too big for HPE, with our scale-up SQL Server 2019 on HPE Alletra 9000 storage. This solution serves mission-critical SQL Server environments, and with the inclusion of the HPE Alletra 9000, provides 100% guaranteed data availability. Performance testing proves 4X performance for SQL Server and other mission-critical apps with HPE Alletra 9000 vs. last-gen infrastructure. If you need to refresh your SQL Server anyway, get the performance benefits of All-NVMe.
Another key dimension to scaling up your SQL Server environment is the compute layer. For many large organizations, this means HPE Superdome Flex. The Superdome Flex team just achieved two world records in performance and price/performance. These were the SQL Server TPC-H (non-clustered) benchmark where they achieved 1,147,031.40 QphH for a 100TB database, and notched a Price/Performance record of just $2,186 US$/kQphH at that same database size. TPC benchmark results are online.
New demos to discover
Back to our Discover session: Meeting Customer-Critical Data Management Challenges with HPE and Microsoft SQL Server. This session will of course cover what HPE is doing with SQL Server, especially for your mission-critical deployments. It will also cover what’s really new with SQL Server and related tech. The session audience will be treated to never-before seen demos. The first will preview some functionality from SQL Server 2022 – the latest version of the database system expected to be GA later this year. Specifically, you’ll see how to realize business continuity in a solution using SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL Managed Instance. Along with a new option for database high availability, this will be a cool new proof point for hybrid cloud computing.
The second new demo features Azure Arc, and uses the latest version of the software to show off what’s possible with Arc-enabled SQL Server.
Still time to join us in Vegas!
Luckily there are lots of flights into the newly renamed Harry Reid airport in Las Vegas. So book one, register for the event, and plan to join us in Vegas starting June 28. Here’s a link to get info on the event, and specific info about our session: Meeting Customer-Critical Data Management Challenges with HPE and Microsoft SQL Server
See you in Vegas!
Mike Harding
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
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