Hyper-V Archives

October 18, 2018

Windows Server Is Still a Thing and SQL Server Still Runs on Top of It

If you’ve been in hibernation, today you woke up to a world where Microsoft has embraced open source and Linux. What was once unthinkable is now happening. What is going on? Why am I even talking about this?

Since the introduction of SQL Server 2017 and the support for Linux-based deployments, I’ve had a steady stream of questions from C-levels on down to DBAs asking in essence this: “Do I need to abandon SQL Server on Windows Server and learn Linux?” I would use something stronger if this was a casual conversation, but the answer is an emphatic “NO!” SQL Server still runs just fine and is supported on Windows Server (including Windows Server 2019, which is just released). Support is not ending any time soon. Linux is just another option and there may be enhancements specific to each platform because of their differences. It’s not an “either/or” thing. So breathe, OK? If you have a use case for Linux, by all means deploy SQL Server on it.

Just last month at Ignite while working the SQL Server area, I heard a lot of these same statements, but this time from a largely non-SQL Server-centric crowd. Sure, SQL Server 2019 deepens things with things like AGs on containers and the Big Data Cluster story which is right now based on Linux-, not Windows-based containers. I am hoping they work out things so Windows-based containers are supported for SQL Server in these advanced configurations, but remember that Windows and containers is much newer than Linux and containers. Let’s see how this shakes out before you start having nervous sweats. The Windows Server story for containers is much better now than it was.

This isn’t the only thing I’ve been hearing. There’s a rumbling in some corners that many feel Microsoft is abandoning Windows Server and it’s all about Azure. That’s just simply not true. Do I think Microsoft’s marketing has been amiss the past few years with regards to Windows Server which has had an unfortunate effect of de-emphasizing it? Yes. I may be a Microsoft MVP, but that’s my honest opinion. Windows Server, quite frankly, hasn’t seen a lot of love and I want them to correct that. There are some awesome features such as Storage Spaces Direct (which I’ve blogged about and has its challenges with SQL Server, but it’s still a big win for Windows Server). People just don’t konw about them.

Let’s be honest: there has been a LOT of marketing/push for Azure, and I think people are hearing Azure in a way that says to them Microsoft does not care about Windows Server. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a Cloud and Datacenter Management MVP (subcategory High Availability, i.e. Cluster), I’m a Windows Server MVP in addition to my SQL Server MVP award so I see both sides of the coin. I can tell you the Windows Server PMs give a hoot and there are a LOT of improvements in Windows Server 2019. Here’s a link to a blog post that links to many of the Ignite presentataions that talk about what’s new in Windows Server 2019.

While we’re at it, there’s also a negative impression around Hyper-V. As I am also a VMware vExpert, I will be the first to tell you that I see more vSphere than I do Hyper-V.. I am fluent in both hypervisros and have helped customers implement them. I conducted an informal poll yesterday on Hyper-V usage and by golly, there are people using it in the wild for on premises virtualization of SQL Server. That said, the predominant vendor I see is VMware. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. Hyper-V is a “just another” feature of WIndows Server, while vSphere is a product of VMware. I think it makes a fundamental difference in perception.

At the same time, I can see where these perceptions are coming from. I hope SQL Server ups its Windows Server game to not make people think support on it is going away, and Windows Server needs to be talked about in general more. I love Microsoft, but I’ll praise when necessary, and criticize when they need it. I’m doing the latter here, but it comes from a place of caring.

Do you feel SQL Server is de-emphasizing its use of Windows Server? Do you see that as a problem if it winds up being the case a few years down the road? Do you think Microsoft is abandoning Windows Server or due to the over emphasis on Azure, or has made it seem irrelevant? Do you think Hyper-V is still viable? Let me know your thoughts below.

March 26, 2018

Mission Critical Moment #2 Is Here

I just got done uploading the second in our new, free video series and it’s now live. This time around I’m tackling a question I get all the time as well as a problem I see – FCIs when people virtualize as well as in the public cloud. Click here to see it.

July 23, 2015

Lots Of Upcoming Training and Speaking – Come See Me!

Happy Thursday, everyone! If you haven’t noticed, I have been pretty silent on the blog front. I am heads down writing the book (which is coming along nicely) as well as doing customer work. Fingers crossed, the book will be done before Summit. I will get back to a more normal blogging schedule when the book is done. Also, be sure to check out Max’s blog posts as he is now also regularly blogging here on the site.

It hasn’t been all book writing and customer work, though. Today I updated our Training and Events section with lots of new stuff. I am pretty excited, but it also means that I will be on the road from late September until early December. The things I do for you guys 🙂

First up is my 4-day Mission Critical SQL Server class in London via Technitrain from September 28 – October 1. As with all my 4-day deliveries, there are lots of hands on labs (bring your own device, though!). This has been on the books for quite some time. I love London, and my class in 2014 was a blast. I expect this delivery and the students to be the same. I may also be doing something else that week … stay tuned!

I will only be home a few days before heading down to Orlando (a place I *clearly* hate if you know me at all – Disney here I come!) for SQL Saturday 442. On Thursday, October 8, I will be doing a brand new preconference session entitled “Planning Highly Available SQL Server Deployments in a Cloudy, Virtualized World“. This is a “normal” precon, meaning there are no labs like some of my other precons. This helps to keep the price down while I get to deliver a really fun – and timely – topic. On the Saturday of the event, I will be delivering the talk What’s New for High Availability in SQL Server 2016 and Windows Server 2016 – another new one I am putting together.

The next thing on the books is the big kahuna – PASS Summit 2015. I am honored to once again be doing a preconference before Summit. This year I will be delivering “Advanced SQL Server Availability Architectures and Deployments“. I could have done the safe thing and just submitted an updated version of what I did last year. Why rest on your laurels? Don’t get me wrong – having 100 people doing labs at the same time was amazing, but been, there, done that. How could I kick it up a notch? Do something more difficult! Everyone gets their own lab environment (i.e. multiple VMs) that they connect to via a browser pm a device they bring with them. I am finalizing what the labs look like right now and will be building the VMs in the next month. I truly believe for topics like this you need to touch and feel. No hands on makes advanced topics more difficult to learn. Space is limited and I expect another sold out session, so register early. Don’t miss the PASS Summit 2015 Speaker Q&A I did for the precon posted up at the Summit site.

During Summit, I was asked to participate in the panel discussion “Will the DBA Job of the Future Still Involve DBAs?“. That should be a lively panel. For the third year in a row, SQLHA will have a booth (this year once again with Denny Cherry & Associates) called Consultant’s Corner. Drop by to say hello to Max or myself – we’ll both be there. Unlike last year where I was juggling speaking as well as the MVP Summit over in Redmond, I will be in the booth quite a bit this year.

Finally, I am very excited to be returning to Australia for two weeks. The last time I was there was 2013. WardyIT is once again bringing me back as part of their Platinum Training series. I will be delivering my 4-day Mission Critical SQL Server Workshop in Brisbane (November 24 – 27) and Canberra (November 30 – December 3). Every time I go to Australia it is two different cities; the last time I did this combination was in 2012. The last time I was in Brisbane I also spoke at the user group, so we’ll see what happens.

As an aside, both the London and Australia deliveries of the Mission Critical SQL Server class will also be the first time that I will be rolling in some 2016 (both SQL Server and Windows Server) content formally into the curriculm where it is appropriate. My classes are always evolving.

Whew! Are you tired from looking at my schedule yet? I know I’ll be hitting at least Platinum on American with all of those miles in the air. And if all of this was not enough, there are a few other things in the works which are not quite ready to be announced yet. As soon as they are, they will be on the events page.

July 7, 2015

Defending Fort SQL Server

I’m seeing a common theme with a subset of our customers. It goes something like this: An enemy horde is on the horizon and the database team has banded together and barred the gates of Fort SQL Server to keep it at bay or die trying.

Unfortunately, the enemy is “change” and the DBAs have about as much chance of winning as cocker spaniel does in a fight against a pack of velociraptors. It really is just a matter of time.

The particular change du jour that some are stalwartly resisting is the encroachment of virtualization into the hallowed halls of SQL Server. This puzzles me because virtualization is a potentially beneficial change. However, conversations along those lines usually result in a “Keep that virtualization away from my SQL Server!” cry from these DBAs.

In computer history terms, virtualization is by no means a “new” technology. It’s been around for more than a decade. It has already been accepted as the foundation of the modern datacenter and the secret sauce for both public and private clouds. It is also the queen of the fully automated test environment.

Logic, logic, wherefore art thou logic? Can virtualization really be good for everything else, but not good for SQL Server?

Our customers that embrace virtualization and allow us to help them tend to find that it:

Adds almost no overhead (1-2% in most cases)
Provides some nice options for building (and rebuilding in DR scenarios) standardized servers from templates
Gives the only type of failover (either vMotion of Live Migration depending on your invading virtualization horde of choice) that keeps SQL Server’s hard earned self-tuning knowledge
Increases the available options for server consolidation which usually improves both hardware utilization and HA/DR options

That is not to say that the pathway to virtualization is a cakewalk which doesn’t have its challenges. Typically, there is new knowledge to be gained and new skills to master. Service monitoring becomes a must have to thwart the “noisy neighbor” scenario and other resource conflicts. At many companies, the DBAs become more reliant on the IT operations staff for certain tasks they previously owned – up to and including some types of failover. However, none of these is by any means terrifying to IT professionals. This is partially because no other field progresses as fast as computing, and over time we’ve gotten used to the pace of our changing technologies.

My business partner Allan has also seen quite a few of these SQL-under-siege situations. It is one of the main reasons that we are teaming up for a talk about virtualizing SQL coming up on Wednesday July 8 at noon EDT for the PASS Virtualization virtual chapter (http://virtualization.sqlpass.org/). If you are interested, please join us there. Click here to register.

Our goal is to help you understand what long-term benefits Hyper-V brings to the table so you will be leading the team doing the planning and deployment. In the end, a great Hyper-V implementation the best defense of all.

June 5, 2013

My Problem With Intel’s Haswell Processors

This week, Intel formally announced its Haswell processors. In the mobile world, this is a big deal because unlike the previous generation of processors (Ivy Bridge), this new one promises things like better battery life and better graphics. I’m all for better battery life. Part of that is they had to redesign the ultra low voltage (ULV) chips that go in many computers. They have a lower power consumption than Ivy Bridge. By the numbers I’ve seen in preliminary tests, Intel really did improve battery life.

My excitement, however, is short lived. As usual, I’m enticed by new and shiny laptops – most notably the upcoming Vaio Pro 11 or Vaio Pro 13. The Pro 11 reminds me of a cross between my old Vaio G, the older Vaio T (not the new cheapie one), and maybe a bit of the X505 thrown in for good measure. Why is my enthusiasm dampered? Virtualization.

Here’s why: one of the things I love being able to do is run Hyper-V (and sometimes ESX) under VMware Workstation. I use Hyper-V for most of my demos, but it’s easier to show some things Hyper-V related under VMware since I can virtualize the hypervisor and have nested virtual machines. Besides the standard virtualization (VT-x in the Intel world), what allows you to run a hypervisor and nested 64-bit guests is the Intel VT-x with Extended Page Tables (EPT) feature of the processor. EPT = second level address translation (SLAT) for you geeky types. This requirement is documented by VMware here.

Cue the sad trombone. According to Intel’s whiz-bang Virtualization Technology web page, with the new Haswell chips, only some of the desktop processors got SLAT support; no mobile processor did. Don’t believe me? Click here.

This is a real setback for those of us who do complex demos from time to time like nested VMs. Remoting back home is not always an option. I’m going to have to seriously consider getting another backup Ivy Bridge machine (even if it’s a small form backup like the NUC) because outside of video, I won’t easily be able to demo some things anymore starting with Haswell.

I’m also bemoaning the fate of things like ethernet ports and VGA, but those can be solved with adapters. You can’t add a feature to a processor.

My woes here really fall into 1% of the user base for a mobile processor. I realize this. But if you’re like me, this is a pause before you get all giddy over Haswell.

EDIT: See my follow up post http://www.sqlha.com/2013/06/13/haswell-and-ept-update/. Intel posted the wrong info initially.

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