Deploying Business Critical Workloads and Applications

DAI VUDIRECTOR, SOLUTIONS MARKETING

MICROSOFT CORPORATION

Virtualization Trends

Production Middleware Systems

End-User Desktops

Production Web Servers

Data/Storage Mgmt Systems

Production Databases

Disaster Recovery Systems

Production Application Servers

Test and Development

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

26%

5%

47%

21%

30%

29%

64%

74%

41%

45%

47%

47%

50%

51%

74%

79%

2008

2006

Source: Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations; Enterprise Management Associates (EMA); April 2008

“What types of workloads have you deployed virtualization technology”

Microsoft Virtualization for Server Applications

Virtualization Platform

Business Critical Applications Management Platform

Enterprise Applications

Line Of Business (LOB) Custom Applications

Database Communication

Business Applications

MicrosoftServer

Applications

Collaboration

Hyper-V™

Microsoft Virtualization = Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V +System Center

Virtualization Deployment Scenarios for

Microsoft SQL Server

SQL Server Consolidation H

ighe

r Iso

latio

n, H

ighe

r Cos

ts Higher D

ensity, Lower Costs

Databases InstancesIT ManagedEnvironment

VirtualMachines

Schemas

Microsoft Confidential

Sales_1

Marketing_1

Online_Sales

ERP_10

ERP_10

DB_1

DB_3

DB_2

Currently a variety of consolidation strategies exist and are utilized

Typically, as isolation goes up, density goes down and operation cost goes up

MyServer

Consolidation Considerations

Multiple SQL Instances Multiple Virtual Machines (VM)

Isolation Shared Windows instance Dedicated Windows instance

CPU Resources Number of CPUs visible to Windows instance

Up to 4 virtual CPUsCPU over-commit is supported

Memory Server LimitDynamic(max server memory)

Statically allocated to VM (Offline changes only)64GB limit per VM2 TB Limit per Host

Storage SQL Data Files with standard storage options

SQL Data Files using Passthrough or Virtual Hard Disks exposed to VM

Resource Management

Windows System Resource Manager(process level)SQL Server Resource Governor

Hyper-V guest VM SQL Server Resource Governor

Number of instances

50 Practical limit determined by physical resources

High Availability Clustering, Database Mirroring, Log Shipping, Replication

Live Migration, Guest Clustering, Database Mirroring, Log Shipping, Replication

Performance Good Comparable with multiple instances, acceptable overhead

SQL Server Consolidation Scalability

)

1VM 2VM 3VM 4VM 5VM 6VM 7VM 8VM0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

Batch req/sec %CPU Relative Throughput

Virtual Instances ScalabilityVirtual Instances Scalability% CPU

Throughput(Batch requests/sec)

Relative Throughput for Windows Server 2008

HeavyLoad

Moderate

Load

LowLoad

CPU over-commitAlmost Linear ScaleNo CPU over-commit

Results:• Increased throughput with consolidation• Near linear scale in throughput with no CPU

over-commit• Improved performance with Windows

Server 2008 R2 and SLAT processor architecture

Configuration:• OS: Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 R2 Hyper-V™• Hardware:

HP DL585 (16 core) with SLAT HP EVA 8000 storage

• Virtual Machines: 4 virtual processors and 7 GB RAM per virtual machine; Fixed size VHD

SQL Server Consolidation ScalabilityResults:• Drop-in compatibility of Istanbul processors with

existing infrastructure • ~50% performance improvement with AMD

HyperTransport Assist feature• Keep cache coherency traffic between the

two sockets from appearing on the external bus

Configuration:• OS: Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 R2 Hyper-V™• Hardware:

HP DL785 (32 core, and 48 cores) with SLATHitachi Data Systems AMS2500 Storage

• Virtual Machines: 4 virtual processors and 7 GB RAM per virtual machine; Fixed size VHD

VM1 VM2 VM4 VM6 VM80

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

5000

82.1290.28

93.12 91.70

94.05

57.8460.15

57.8459.79 60.67

Batches/sec_Istanbul

Batches/sec_Shanghai

%Processor Time_Istanbul

%Processor Time_Shanghai

Relative Throughput_IstanbulRelative Throughput_Shanghai

Comparing Istanbul vs. Shanghai

42%

55%

Virtualization for SQL Server Business Intelligence Virtualization Benefits:

• Increase agility by rapidly provisioning and scaling-out BI components on demand

• Reduce the number of physical servers, save on power and space

Scenario Description:• Business Intelligence (BI) components with lower

resource requirements such as Data Mart (DM), OLAP Cube, Reporting Servers are good candidates for scale out and ideal for virtualization

• Operational Data Store (ODS), Data Warehouse (DW), SQL Server® Integration Services could be physical or virtual depending on scale up requirements

• If virtual, put SSIS and Data Warehouse on the same Virtual Machine (VM)

ERPExternal

1

2

Operational Data Store

Web Legacy

Click Here For More Information

Reporting Server

Data Mart & OLAP Cube

Reporting Server

Data Mart & OLAP Cube

VM

SQL Server® Integrati

on Services (SSIS)

Data Warehous

e (DW)

Remote Site Consolidation with DB Mirroring

Scenario Description:• Help protect from data loss with SQL

Server® Database Mirroring. Automatically, failover from primary to standby using witness.

• Consolidate mirrored database servers on standby site with virtualization

• Use mirrored databases with database snapshots for reporting

• Ensure there is enough CPU capacity at the standby site to provide acceptable SLA upon failover

Virtualization Benefits: • Better server utilization on standby

site due to consolidation• Cost effective disaster recovery solution

without using costly specialized hardware• Management efficiency based on SQL

Server and System Center management tools

2

1

SQL Server Database Mirroring

2SQL Server Database

Mirroring

3

Click Here For More Information

VM

Reporting Server(DB Snapshot)

Performance and Resource Optimization

PRO Pack Technologies

Partner PRO Technology

Brocade Monitor IO performance from the server to the data in the SAN

Dell The “PRO-enabled” Dell Management Pack ensures that host machines operate under normal power and temperature thresholds. Other PRO alerts include memory, storage controller, and disk remediation.

Citrix Workflows can be initiated to automatically start or provision VMs based on an entity’s health and automatically update NetScaler load balancing rules

Emulex Monitor I/O rates across the HBA relative to maximum available bandwidth

HP Monitor the following attributes of their servers: hard drive, array controller, power, temperature, processor, memory, fans, and alert on degradation or critical errors providing the appropriate recommended resolution

Quest Software For non-Windows Operating Systems and non-Microsoft application technologies, the solution enables intelligent virtual machine tuning

Secure Vantage Extends the native capabilities of Security Management providing users the ability to mitigate risk and remediate policy violations across virtual environments

Virtual Machine Manager PRO Packs

For complete list, visit http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/virtualmachinemanager/en/us/pro-partners.aspx

Hyper-V Configuration Guidelines• Hyper-V Root Configuration

• Plan for 1GB+ memory reserve for the management OS in the root partition

• Plan for one dedicated NIC for management purposes• Plan (ideally) for one dedicated NIC for live migration• Separate LUNs/Arrays for management OS, guest OS VHDs and

VM storage• Management OS and VHD LUNs should employ RAID to provide

data protection and performance• Challenge for blades with 2 physical disks

• Hyper-V Guest Configuration• Fixed-sized VHDs for Virtual OS

• Need to account for page file consumption in addition to OS requirementsOS VHD Size (minimum 15GB) + VM Memory Size = Minimum VHD size

• Account for space needed by additional files by VM• Example for SQL: OS VHD Size + (VM Memory Size) + Data

Files + Log Files

SQL Server Best Practices

• Guest virtual machines are limited to 4 CPU cores• Best performance if VMs are not over-committed for

CPU• Test Network intensive applications for acceptable

SLAs• Use multi-pathing on host or within the VM to ensure

maximum throughput and high availability for VM workloads

• Utilize either pass-through disk or fixed-size VHD for guest virtual machines

• Avoid using emulated devices. Instead, ensure integration components are installed and synthetic devices are being used.

Virtualization Deployment Scenarios for

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

What is a SharePoint Farm?

What is a SharePoint® Farm?

A collection of one or more SharePoint Servers and SQL Servers® providing a set of basic SharePoint services bound together by a single configuration database in SQL Server

Key Components:

• Web Front End (WFE) Servers:o Windows® SharePoint Services o Web Application Service

• Application Servers:o Office SharePoint Server Search

Service (Index or Query)

o Document Conversion Launcher Service

o Document Conversion Load Balancer Service

o Excel Calculation Services

• SQL Server

SharePoint Roles & Virtualization Considerations

Role VirtualizationDecision Considerations and Requirements

Web RoleRender Content Ideal • Easily provision additional servers for load

balancing and fault tolerance

Query RoleProcess Search Queries

Ideal• For large indexes, use physical volume over dynamic expanding VHD• Requires propagated copy of local index

Application RoleExcel Forms Services

Ideal • Provision more servers as resource requirements for individual applications increase

Index RoleCrawl Index Consider

• Environments where significant amount of content is not crawled• Requires enough drive space to store the index corpus

Database Role Consider

• Environments with lower resource usage requirements• Implement SQL Server® alias for the farm required

Production Farm – Physical & Virtual Mix

Scenario Description:• Optimized scenario for high-end

production is mixed physical and virtual• Index and database roles on dedicated

physical servers to provide very high scalability

• Virtual web, query, and application roles• All servers managed by System Center

Suite

Virtualization Benefits:• Unified management: physical and

virtual• Dynamic data center: scale dynamically

and on-demand provisioning

TEST

DEV

PRODUCTION

Shared StorageiSCSI, SAS, Fibre

Failover Server

VM

Index

SharePoint Virtualization Best Practices

Best Practices and Recommendations

CPU• Configure a 1-to-1 mapping of virtual processor to logical processors for best performance • Be aware of “CPU bound” issues

Memory

• Ensure enough memory is allocated to each virtual machine

Disk• Be aware of underlying disk read write contention between different virtual machines to their virtual hard disks • Ensure SAN is configured correctly

Network

• Use VLAN tagging for security • Associate SharePoint® virtual machines to the same virtual switch

Others

• Ensure that integration components are installed on the virtual machine • Do not use other host roles (use server core)• Avoid single point of failure: load balance your virtual machines across hosts and cluster virtual machines

Virtualization Deployment Scenarios for

Microsoft Exchange Server

Deployment Recommendations• Exchange application is not ‘virtualization

aware’• Core Exchange Design Principles Still Apply

• Design for Performance, Reliability and Capacity• Design for Usage Profiles (CAS/MBX)• Design for Message Profiles (Hub/Edge)

• Virtualization Design Principles Now Apply• Design for Performance, Reliability and Capacity• Virtual machines should be sized specific to the

Exchange role (EDGE, HUB, CAS, MBX, multi-role)• Hosts should be sized to accommodate the guests

that they will support

Exchange 2010 Sizing Guidance

Role

Physical Deployment Virtual Deployment Notes

Maximum Processor Cores

Memory Sizing

Processor Core : MBX Ratio

Maximum Virtual Processors

Memory Sizing

Standard VM

Standard VM Ratio

Edge/Hub

12 processor cores

1 GB per processor core

• 1:5 with Anti-Virus• 1:7 with no AV

4 virtual processors

1 GB per processor core

4 VPs + 4GB

1 HUB VM : 5 MBX VMs

To accommodate peak I/O (e.g. processing queue) locate Transport DB + Logs on separate spindles

CAS 12 processor cores

2GB per processor core

3:4 4 virtual processors

2 GB per processor core

4 VPs + 8GB

3 CAS VMs : 4 MBX VMs

Detailed guidance on TechNet

CAS/ Hub Multi-Role

12 processor cores

2GB per processor core

1:1 4 virtual processors

2 GB per processor core

4 VPs + 8GB

1 CAS/HUB VM : 1 MBX VM

Simplifies core ratio. Better balanced workloads on typical servers which have 8, 16 or 24 core counts.

MBX 12 processor cores

4GB + 3-30MB per MBX

N/A 4 virtual processors

4GB + 3-30MB per MBX

4GB + 3-30MB per MBX

4 VPs + 16-24GB

Adjust for number of mailboxes and database cache for send/receive profile

CAS/HUB

MBX

8 cores

CAS/HUB

CAS/HUB

CAS/HUB

MBX

MBX

MBX

CAS/HUB

MBX

MBX

CAS/HUB

16 cores 24 cores

CAS / HUB Multi-Role Server

CAS/HUB

CAS/HUB

CAS/HUB

MBX

MBX

MBX

Mailbox Server GuidelinesDatabase Cache requirements are the same for physical and virtual deployments

Total Send + Receive

(75k message size)

Database CachePer Mailbox (MB)

50 3

100 6

150 9

200 12

250 15

300 18

350 21

400 24

450 27

500 30

Total Send + Receive

(75k message size)

Users Per Core

Physical MBX Role

Users Per VPVirtual MBX

Role

50 1000 900

100 900 810

150 800 720

200 700 630

250 600 540

300 500 450

350 400 360

400 300 270

Virtual Processor ≠ Logical Processor• Hypervisor and the Virtualization Stack consume CPU• Reduce recommended MBX count by ~10%

Mailbox Storage Configuration• Virtual SCSI (passthrough or fixed disk)• Recommended configuration for database and

log volumes• iSCSI• Standard best practice for iSCSI connected

storage apply (dedicated NIC, jumbo frames, offload, etc.)

• iSCSI initiator in the guest is supported but need to account for reduced performance

Exchange 2010 High Availability• Database Availability Group (DAG)

• A group of up to 16 Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox servers that provide automatic database-level recovery

• Uses continuous log replication and a subset of Windows Failover Clustering technologies

• Can extend across multiple datacenters/AD sites• Benefits of Exchange Native Data Protection

• Protection from database, server or network failure• Automatic failover protection and manual

switchover control is provided at the mailbox database level instead of at the server level.

• Support for up to 16 copies, support for lag copies

Host Based Failover Clustering

• Host Based Failover Clustering HA• Using Host Based Failover Clustering and

automatically failing VMs to an alternate cluster node in the event of a critical hardware issue (virtualization platform independent)

• What you need to be aware of:• Not an Exchange Aware Solution• Only protects against server hardware/network

failure• No HA in the event of storage failure / data

corruption• Trend is larger mailboxes = larger database sizes =

longer time to recover from data loss = DAG• Not supported for MBX VMs that are members of a

DAG

Live Migration and Exchange 2010• Physical Computer Maintenance

• Operating System/Application Updates• Hardware Maintenance

• Rebalancing Workloads

• Dynamic Redistribution of VM’s to optimize workload on physical hardware

• Green IT

• ‘Off Peak’ Virtual Machine Consolidation

Support Guidelines

• TechNet is the single source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc794548.aspx

• SVVP Support Policy Wizard is a great tool:http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/svvp.aspx?svvppage=svvpwizard.htm

• Always confirm SPW results with our TechNet article

• Check back for updates• Clarifications published frequently

Supportability Quick ReferenceExchange 2010• Supported

• Root: Hyper-V or any virtualization platform in SVVP• Guest:

• Exchange 2010• Windows 2008 SP2 or R2• Mailbox, Client Access, Hub Transport, Edge roles• Meets basic Exchange system requirements• Storage is fixed VHD, SCSI pass through, or iSCSI

• Not Supported• Combination of Exchange Mailbox HA (i.e. Mailbox servers in a DAG)

and any host/hypervisor-based clustering or migration technologies (e.g. Microsoft Live Migration, VMware V-Motion, etc.)

• Snapshots, differencing/delta disks• Unified Messaging role• Virtual/logical processor ratio greater than 2:1• Applications running in root partition (excluding AV)

Microsoft Virtualization: The Best Choice for Microsoft Server Applications

Microsoft Server Applications

Built for Windows

Low Cost Complete Solution

Complete Management

Solution

*Physical & Virtual Management

*Cross Platform and Hypervisor Support

*Deep Application Knowledge

*Built-in Virtualization with One-stop Support

IncreasedDeployment Options

*Large Partner Ecosystem

*A comparable solution can cost up to six

times more†

*Lower Ongoing Costs

Virtualization-friendlyLicensing

*Only available with Microsoft Virtualization †Based on a comparison of Microsoft® System Center Server Management Suite Datacenter with VMware® vSphere Enterprise Plus with VMware vCenter Server.. Assumes a five host configuration, 2 processors on each host, 2 years support costs for both products, and no operating system costs included.. The Microsoft solution can use either the free Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 hypervisor or an existing Windows Server 2008 R2 hypervisor. Based on Microsoft estimated retail prices and published VMware prices available at https://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore as of 08/04/2009 for purchases in the United States. Actual reseller prices may vary.

For More Information…

Virtualization• Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-main.aspx

• Windows Virtualization Team Bloghttp://blogs.technet.com/virtualization

• Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides for Virtualizationhttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/ee395429.aspx?SA_CE=VIRT-IPD-WEB-MSCOM-2009-09-21

• Microsoft Virtualization Solutionshttp://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/solution-business-apps.aspx

Exchange• Exchange Virtualization Best Practices Webcast

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032428204&CountryCode=US

• Exchange Server 2010 Guidancehttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124558(EXCHG.140).aspx

• Exchange Team Bloghttp://blogs.technet.com/exchange

For More Information…

SQL Server• SQL Server Virtualization

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/virtualization.aspx

• SQL Server Whitepapershttp://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/white-papers.aspx

• SQL Server Virtualization Best Practices Webcasthttp://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032428764&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

SharePoint• Solutions for Optimizing SharePoint

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/managing-microsoft-applications/optimizing-sharepoint.aspx

• Microsoft Virtualization Solutionshttp://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/solution-business-apps.aspx

• Microsoft Consulting Services UK SharePoint Bloghttp://blogs.msdn.com/uksharepoint/archive/2009/03/04/topic-1-recommendations-for-optimizing-the-performance-of-a-virtualized-sharepoint-environment.aspx

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the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.