SQL Server AlwaysOn

Speaker: John Ecken

Topic: SQL Server AlwaysOn Technology

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• Fail-over Clustering (Shared Drive)

• Database Mirroring• Always On • Log Shipping • Replication

Introducing SQL Server 2014 DR

Introducing SQL Server 2014 AlwaysOn

Efficiency and cost-effectiveness are improved through the implementation of:

– AlwaysOn Readable Secondaries– Contained Databases– Multi subnet availability

Improvements with Always On

Improved Efficiency and Cost-Effectiveness

• In SQL Server 2008 R2 or prior• Database mirroring provides automated failover of a single database• Redundant copies of the database exist on principle and mirror server• Failing over multiple databases at the same time requires custom code logic to

detect single failure and then initiate failover of other databases• Application failover is accomplished through the use of FailoverPartner

connection string value

• In SQL Server 2012• Redundant copies (up to four) of the databases exist on nodes participating in

the Availability Group, maintained either synchronously or asynchronously• Multiple-database failover is handled automatically by the Availability Group• Application failover through the Availability Group Listener and Application

Virtual Name

What happens when…

Business requirements are for automatic failover of multiple databases together with no single point of failure and redundancy across multiple datacenters

Groups

AlwaysOn Availability Groups

Enhance the capabilities of database mirroring– Multiple database coordinated failover for applications that require multiple

databases on a single instance (e.g. SharePoint)

– Simplified application connectivity and automatic redirection through the implementation of Availability Group Listener and Application Virtual Name

– Built in compression and encryption

– Synchronous or asynchronous data movement

– Automatic or manual failover modes with configurable failover trigger levels

– Automatic repair of page corruptions

– Readable secondary replicas

– Support for FILESTREAM, FILETABLE, RBS and Service Broker

– Simplified configuration wizards, PowerShell integration and Availability Group Dashboard for monitoring

Topology examples

A

A

Direct attached storage local, regional and geo secondaries

A

A

Synchronous data movement

Asynchronous data movement

• In SQL Server 2008 R2 or prior• SQL Server Logins are mapped to Database Users through login SIDs

• Incorrectly mapped logins result from creating logins on additional servers• Can result in problems during failovers or when restoring databases to new

servers• Requires manual transfer of login using sp_help_revlogin or SSIS Transfer

Logins task to maintain identical SID on both servers• Nothing tracks external dependencies that might exist in the database code

• In SQL Server 2012• Partially Contained Databases contain Database Login Credentials as a part of

the database• Simplifies failover planning for the environment by allowing the login

information to be persisted as a part of the database

• Developers can track instance level impacts and uncontained dependencies with

What happens when…

You need to move a database to a different SQL Server (Containment)

Containment Demo

AlwaysOn in SQL Server 2014

What’s New

• What’s being delivered• Increase number of secondaries from four to eight• Increase availability of readable secondaries• Support for Windows Server 2012 CSV• Enhanced diagnostics

• Main benefits• Further scale out read workloads across (possibly geo-distributed) replicas • Use readable secondaries despite network failures (important in geo-distributed

environments)• Improve SAN storage utilization

• Avoid drive letter limitation (max 24 drives) via CSV paths• Increase resiliency of storage failover

• Ease troubleshooting

Groups in 2014

Description

• Increase number of secondaries (4–8)• Max number of sync secondaries is still two

Reason

• Customers want to use readable secondaries• One technology to configure and manage• Many times faster than replication

• Customers are asking for more database replicas (4–8)• To reduce query latency (large-scale

environments)• To scale out read workloads

Increase Number of Availability Group Secondaries

Always On Group Demo

Client connection behavior determined by the Availability Group Replica option

– Replica option determines whether a replica is enabled for read access when in a secondary role and which clients can connect to it

– Choices are:• No connections• Only connections specifying Application Intent=ReadOnly connection property• All connections

Read-only Routing enables redirection of client connection to new readable secondary after a failover

– Connection specifies the Availability Group Listener Virtual Name plus Application Intent=ReadOnly in the connection string

– Possible for connections to go to different readable secondaries if available to balance read-only access

Readable Secondary

Client Connectivity

Client connects to the Availability Group Listener virtual name

– Standard connections are routed to the Primary server for read/write operations

– ReadOnly connections are routed to a readable secondary based on ReadOnly routing configuration

Readable secondary

ReadOnly Routing

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Challenges:– Query workloads typically require index/column statistics so the query optimizer can

formulate an efficient query plan

– Read-only workloads on a secondary replica may require different statistics than the workload on the primary replica

– Users cannot create different statistics themselves (secondaries can’t be modified)

Solution:– SQL Server will automatically create required statistics, but store them as temporary

statistics in tempdb on the secondary nodeIf different indexes are required by the secondary workload, these must be created on the primary replica so they will be present on the secondaries

– Care should be taken when creating additional indexes that maintenance overhead does not affect the workload performance on the primary replica

Readable secondary

Query Performance on the Secondary

Backups can be done on any replica of a database to offload I/O from primary replica

– Transaction log backups, plus COPY_ONLY full backupsBackup jobs can be configured on all replicas and preferences set so that a job only runs on the preferred replica at that time

– This means no script/job changes are required after a failover

Transaction log backups done on all replicas form a single log chainDatabase Recovery Advisor tool helps with restoring backups from multiple Secondaries

Readable secondary

Offloading Backups to a Secondary

Read-only workloads on mirror database using traditional database mirroring can block replay of transactions from the principalUsing Readable Secondaries, the reporting workload uses snapshot isolation to avoid blocking the replay of transactions

– Snapshot isolation avoids read locks which could block the REDO background thread

– The REDO thread will never be chosen as the deadlock victim, if a deadlock occurs

Replaying DDL operations on the secondary may be blocked by schema locks held by long running or complex queries

– XEvent fires which allows programmatic termination/resumption of reporting

Readable secondary

Workload impact on the secondary

Readable Secondary Demo

• SQL and Azure Together• Business Information with what you already

have (SQL, Reporting Service, Excel)• Office 365 and Power BI

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