SQL Server runs on the new HPE VM Essentials

[Cloud_Experts]

By Mike Harding, Manager, Microsoft and Industry Solutions, HPE Hybrid Cloud

VMware vSphere has long been the leading choice for server virtualization in data centers. However, many organizations are now reassessing their IT infrastructure due to the sudden and substantial increase in VMware licensing costs. The increase hit broadly across the IT space and across virtualized IT workloads, but we expect it especially impacted the cost to operate databases, as they are used widely by most organizations.

As to the alternatives? Well, there really are few enterprise grade options, and they either come with significant licensing cost themselves, or significant complexity. An important exception is Microsoft’s Hyper-V, which is quite established, familiar to most IT staff, and comes free with Windows Server. However, there is a new option that merits strong consideration: HPE VM Essentials Software.

A new tech whitepaper details the deployment of Microsoft SQL Server on this new hypervisor. “Deploying virtualized Microsoft SQL Server on HPE VM Essentials Software using HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000” is available for free download.

Broadcom gets shifty

Apparently the recent, shocking increase to VMware licensing, was, according to Broadcom, the company that acquired VMware, merely a "subscription-based licensing shift.” This innocuous term downplays the harsh and impactful change made, where traditional perpetual licenses had been terminated and were replaced by a subscription model along with broader licensing bundles, requiring regular payments for access to significantly more expensive updates and support. This shift put licensing costs into high gear for too many customers, and thus they have been moving to alternatives.

Fortunately, there is an abundance of tools and guidance on moving from VMware. Two recent notable publications include a guide on Solving your VMware transformation challenges with HPE and a more recent technical blog on converting from VMware.

Essential ingredient for enterprise computing

Not long after the HPE acquisition of Morpheus Data, and once the impact of the Broadcom licensing change became apparent, technical work began to evolve the product. Once a singular platform to automate and orchestrate hybrid and multi-cloud IT environments, it was enhanced to enable the use of a stand-alone hypervisor environment. This became known as HPE VM Essentials.

HPE VM Essentials is a proven, enterprise grade virtualization platform, based on KVM, with a robust set of features and broad storage support, including NFS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, distributed workload placement, VM HA and live migration, as well as data protection via snapshots and native backup.

HPE VM Essentials is available as a standalone product or as part of the full HPE Morpheus Software for hybrid cloud management, K8s support, governance and orchestration, and FinOps capabilities.

Microsoft SQL Server validated

In response to customer requests, and as soon as a functioning lab environment was available, the Microsoft solution team at HPE went to work to test SQL Server within the new VM Essentials. The above image is a high-level view of that Microsoft SQL Server on HPE VM Essentials solution stack. An HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 was used to provide both Fibre Channel and iSCSI connectivity to the VM Essentials cluster, allowing data storage with either protocol to be used for creating a VM.

There were a few key takeaways from the testing:

• Comparable VM admin for databases. The engineers validated that the VME experience was comparable to VMware, and sufficient for enterprise database use, with key functionality including VM HA, live migration, data protection via snapshots and native backup.
• Robust and diverse storage support. VME can serve the wide-ranging requirements of an enterprise database estate, with capabilities around workload placement, and broad data storage protocol support for local disks and external storage (NFS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel)
• Easy optimization of database storage. The GUI-driven Windows VM deployment workflow enables easy add and assignment of disks to specific data files in SQL Server
• Scale databases non-disruptively.  It’s easy to increase database instance VM CPU, RAM or volumes on the fly with no reboot. New volumes automatically appear in Windows Disk Management.
• More affordable for scale-up SQL Server. VME’s per-socket vs. VMware’s per-core licensing saves on high core count CPUs required for larger databases and those with high transactions.

Get the essential details on VME

Read the whitepaper to learn how well Microsoft SQL Server runs within the new HPE VM Essentials Software.

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Meet HPE Blogger Mike Harding, Manager, Microsoft and Industry Solutions, HPE Hybrid Cloud

Mike is a marketing leader with more than 20 years of experience across software, hardware, services, and cloud. He focuses on bringing valuable new technology to market. Mike's specialties include new product planning, launching, and management.

Follow Mike on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

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