Virtualisation Scenarios for Business Critical Applications

What We Will Cover

Why Microsoft Virtualization for Microsoft Server Applications? SQL Server Virtualization Scenarios
Consolidation, BI and HA Scenarios Scalability Tests, Best Practices, Sizing Guidelines

SharePoint Virtualization Best Practices Exchange Virtualization Best Practices Links to Reference Material

Virtualization Trends
What types of workloads have you deployed virtualization technology for 2006 vs . 2008

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

Save Costs : Improve Resource Utilization Reduce server sprawl, save space

Save on power and cooling costs Optimize usage of current hardware resources

Customers are Reaping the Benefits

By the time we hit our fifth virtual machine on a host, weve usually paid for the host. Long term, we will be able to reduce our total data center holdings by 75 percent .
Robert McSkinsky , Senior Systems Administrator , Dartmouth - Hitchcock Medical Center

Enhanced Business Continuity

Increase availability of business applications Delivers cost effective high availability Improve service levels, less downtime

We can no longer tolerate service interruptions . With virtualization, we are creating a redundant data center in Normandy to ensure business continuity
Amaury Pitrou , Projects Architecture , Desktops and Mobility Director Bouygues Constructions

Agile and Efficient Management

Rapidly provision business applications Quickly test applications Increase administrative flexibility

Building a physical server took almost four hours before virtualization. Hyper-V has helped decrease this time to 20 minutes .
Vito Forte , Chief Information Officer WorleyParsons

Microsoft Virtualization for Server Business Critical Management Applications Applications Platform
Business Applicati ons

Enterprise ApplicationsBusiness (LOB) Custom Applications Line Of

Microsoft Server Applicati ons

Database

Collaboration

Communication

Virtualization Platform
Hyper-V

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

Microsoft Virtualization: The Best Choice for Microsoft Microsoft Server Server Applications Complete Low Cost
Applications Built for Windows Management Solution Complete Solution

* Built - in Virtualization with One - stop Support * Large Partner Ecosystem Increased Deployment Options

* Deep Application Knowledge * Physical & Virtual Management * Cross Platform and Hypervisor Support

* A comparable solution can cost up to six times more * Lower Ongoing Costs Virtualizationfriendly Licensing

* Only available with Microsoft Virtualization System Center Server Management Suite Datacenter withVMware vSphere Enterprise Plus withVMwarevCenter Server.. Assumes Based on acomparison of Microsoft
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 2008R2hypervisor or an existing Windows Server 2008R2 hypervisor. Based on Microsoft estimated retail prices and publishedVMware prices available at https://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore as of 08/04/2009 for purchases in the United States . Actual reseller prices may vary.

Virtualization Deployment Scenarios for

Microsoft SQL Server

SQL Server Consolidation

Higher Isolation, Higher Costs
uCurrently

Higher Density, Lower Costs

a variety of consolidation strategies exist and are utilized. uTypically, as isolation goes up, density goes down and operation cost goes up.

IT Managed Environment

Virtual Machines

Instances

Databases
MyServer

Schemas

Sales_1 Marketing_1 Online_Sales ERP_10 ERP_10

Consolidate_1

DB_1 DB_2 DB_3

Microsoft Confidential

Consolidation Considerations
Multiple SQL Instances
Isolation CPU Resources Memory
Shared Windows instance Number of CPUs visible to Windows instance Server Limit Dynamic(max server memory)

Multiple Virtual Machines (VM)

Dedicated Windows instance Up to 4 virtual CPUs CPU over-commit is supported Statically allocated to VM (Offline changes only) 64GB limit per VM 2 TB Limit per Host SQL Data Files using Passthrough or Virtual Hard Disks exposed to VM Hyper-V guest VM SQL Server Resource Governor Practical limit determined by physical resources

Storage Resource Management Number of instances High Availability Performance

SQL Data Files with standard storage options Windows System Resource Manager(process level) SQL Server Resource Governor 50

Clustering, Database Mirroring, Log Live Migration, Guest Clustering, Database Mirroring, Log Shipping, Replication Shipping, Replication Good Comparable with multiple instances, acceptable overhead

Virtual Memory & Second-Level With Virtualization Translationan additional level of mapping is required Second Level Address Translation (SLAT) provides the extra
translation into Virtual Machine address spaces Performance advantage over non-enabled CPUs

The Virtual / Process view

Virtual Machine 1 Virtual Machine 3

The Physical / real view Physical Memory Pages

Virtual Machine 1

Hyper Visor Operating System

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 Scalability

Results :
Almost Linear Scale No CPU over - commit CPU over - commit

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
Throughput (Batch requests/sec)

% CPU

Heavy Load

Moderat e Load

Low Load

Relative Throughput for Windows Server 2008

Configuration :

OS: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-

V Hardw are: HP DL785 (32 core, and 48 cores) with SLAT Hitachi Data Systems AMS2500 Storage Virtu al Machine s: 4 virtual processors and 7 GB RAM per virtual machine; Fixed size VHD

SQL Server Consolidation Scalability

Results :

Drop-in compatibility of Istanbul processors with existing infrastructure ~ 50 % performance improvement with AMD HyperTransport Assist (Intel snoop filter) feature Keep cache coherency traffic between the two sockets from appearing on the external bus

Virtualization for SQL Server Business Scenario Description : Virtualization Benefits : Intelligence
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)

Increase agility by rapidly provisioning and scaling-out BI components on demand Reduce the number of physical servers, save on power and space

Externa l

ERP

Web

Legacy Reporting Server

VM Data Mart & OLAP Cube

1
Data Warehouse SQL Server Integration Services ( SSIS ) ( DW ) Operational Data Store Reporting Server Data Mart & OLAP Cube

Click Here For More Information

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

Remote Site Consolidation with DB Mirroring

VM

SQL Server Database Mirroring

Reporting Server ( DB 2 Snapshot )

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

3
SQL Server Database Mirroring

Click Here For More Information

Hyper-V Live Migration

Technology in Windows Server 2008 R2 that allows you to move running VMs from one physical server to another physical server without disruption of service or perceived downtime Live Migration Process
1. 2.

Initiated via in-box cluster UI, SCVMM, PowerShell VM State/Memory Transfer

a) Create VM on the target b) Move memory pages from the source to the target via Ethernet

3.

Final state transfer and virtual machine restore

a) Pause virtual machine b) Move storage connectivity from source host to target host via Ethernet

4.

Un-pause & Run

Host 1
Blue = Shared Storage (FC, iSCSI) Yellow = Networking Green = Live migration networking (1Gb or better )

Host 2

Scenario Description :

Manage high availability with multipathing and live migration for planned downtime situations, such as hardware and software maintenance Failover individual virtual machines (VMs) to other hosts within a cluster by using Cluster Shared Volume (in Windows Server 2008 R2) Use Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager for migrations. System Center VMM can perform host compatibility checks before migrations and manage multiple Live Migrations with queues. Nodes in cluster can be active-active Ensure there is enough CPU capacity for the failover nodes in cluster

SQL Server with Live Migration

VM

1 1

Live Migration

Virtualization Benefits :

Host cluster

No loss of service during failover with live migration. Migration is completely transparent to the user Improve availability with less complexity Better server utilization due to consolidation Easier set up and management through System Center VMM
Click Here For More Information

iSCSI , SAS , Fibre

Shared Storage

Performance & Resource Optimization

Virtual Machine Manager PRO Packs

PRO Pack T echnologies

PRO Technology
Monitor IO performance from the server to the data in the SAN 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. initiated to automatically start or provision VMs based on an entitys health Workflows can be and automatically update NetScaler load balancing rules Monitor I/O rates across the HBA relative to maximum available bandwidth 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 and non-Microsoft application technologies, the solution For non-Windows Operating Systems enables intelligent virtual machine tuning Extends the native capabilities of Security Management providing users the ability to mitigate risk and remediate policy violations across virtual environments

Partner
Brocade Dell Citrix Emulex HP Quest Software Secure Vantage

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

Hyper-V Configuration Hyper-V Root Guidelines 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 Fixed-sized VHDs for Virtual OS
Need to account for page file consumption in addition to OS requirements OS VHD Size (minimum 15GB) + VM Memory Size = Minimum VHD size

Hyper-V Guest Configuration

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 overcommitted 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.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

V i a l za ti n D e p l ym e n t S ce n a ri s fo r rtu i o o o

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: Application Servers:
oWindows SharePoint Services oWeb Application Service oOffice SharePoint Server Search Service (Index or Query ) oDocument Conversion Launcher Service oDocument Conversion Load Balancer Service oExcel Calculation Services

SQL Server

SharePoint Roles & Virtualization Considerations Considerations and Requirements Role Virtualization
Decision Ideal Web Role Render Content Query Role Process Search Queries Application Role Excel Forms Services Index Role Crawl Index Database Role
Easily provision additional servers for load balancing and fault tolerance

Ideal

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

Ideal

Provision more servers as resource requirements for individual applications increase

Consider

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

Consider

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

For details, see SharePoint Virtualization whitepaper at http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/solutions/business-critical-applications

Production Farm Physical & Virtual Mix

Scenario Description :
VM

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

DEV

TEST

Virtualization Benefits :

Unified management: physical and virtual Dynamic data center: scale dynamically and on-demand provisioning

PRODUCTION

Failov er Server

Shared Storage iSCSI , SAS , Fibre

Index

Click Here for More Information

Partner Evidence: SharePoint DESCRIPTION Virtualization Deployment with mix of

physical & virtual servers Web, Query and Application roles are deployed virtual; database role is deployed physical Maintains resource optimization with PRO RESULTS Average response time of under 3 - 5 seconds with 1 % concurrency with a heavy user load profile of over 300K user capacity VIRTUAL MACHINE SPECIFICATIONS 1 Index server dedicated for crawling: 4 CPUs, 6 GB RAM per VM 10 Web Front End & Query servers : 4 CPUs, 4 GB RAM per VM 2 Application servers: 2 CPUs, 2 GB RAM per VM 2 Domain controllers: 2 CPUs, 2 GB RAM per VM
S o u r c e : EMC Virtual Architecture for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enabled by Hyper-V (whitepaper)

Click here for more information

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 Disk

Ensure enough memory is allocated to each virtual machine

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

Microsoft Exchange Server

Virtualization Deployment Scenarios for

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, multirole) Hosts should be sized to accommodate the guests that they will support

Exchange 2010 Sizing Role Physical DeploymentVirtual Deployment Notes Guidance

Edge/ Hub CAS CAS/ Hub MultiMBX Role Maximum Processor Cores 12 processor cores 12 processor cores 12 processor cores 12 processor cores Memory Sizing 1 GB per processor core per 2GB processor core per 2GB processor core + 34GB 30MB per MBX Processor Core : MBX Ratio 1:5 with Anti-Virus 1:7 with no 3:4 AV 1:1 N/A Maximum Virtual Processors 4 virtual processors 4 virtual processors 4 virtual processors 4 virtual processors Memory Standard Sizing VM 1 GB per 4 VPs + processor core 4GB 2 GB per 4 VPs + processor core 8GB 2 GB per 4 VPs + processor core 8GB 4GB + 34GB + 330MB per 30MB per MBX MBX 1 CAS/HUB VM : 1 MBX VM + 164 VPs 24GB

Standard VM Ratio 1 HUB VM : 5 To accommodate peak I/O (e.g. MBX VMs processing queue) locate Detailed guidance to be 3 CAS VMs : Transport DB + Logs on separate available by early Dec 4 MBX VMs spindles Simplifies core ratio. Better balanced workloads on typical servers for number of mailboxes Adjust which have 8, 16 or 24 coredatabase cache for and counts. send/receive profile

CAS / HUB Multi-Role Server

CS A /H B U

C S /H B A U
MX B

C S /H B A U
C S /H B A U

C S /H B A U

MX B MX B

CS A

/H B U MX B

MX B

MX B

8 cores 16 cores 24 cores

Mailbox Server Guidelines

Database Cache requirements are the same for physical and virtual deployments

Virtual Processor Logical Processor

Total Send + Receive (75k message size)

Database Cache Per Mailbox (MB)

Hypervisor and the Virtualization Stack consume CPU Reduce recommended MBX count by ~10%
Users Per Core Physical MBX Role 1000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 Users Per VP Virtual MBX Role 900 810 720 630 540 450 360 270

50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30

Total Send + Receive (75k message size) 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

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 ExchangeServer2010Mailbox servers that provide automatic database-level recovery Uses continuous log replicationand 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 VMs 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 Reference

Exchange 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)

Partner Evidence: Exchange HP recommended configurations for Virtualization

Exchange 2010 virtualization using Hyper-V R2
Sizing for 20,000 users, 512 MB mailboxes
All roles virtualized and Live Migration for MBX servers Hardware: HP ProLiant BL460c G6 (BL460c G6) server blade and HP StorageWorks 8400 Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA8400) storage systems

http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA1-2127E

Sizing for 5,000 users, 256 MB mailboxes

All roles virtualized and Live Migration for MBX servers Hardware: HP ProLiant BL460c G6 (BL460c G6) server blades and HP LeftHand P4500 (P4500)

For More Information

Virtualization Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V

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

Windows Virtualization Team Blog

Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides for Virtualization

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/ee395429.aspx?SA_CE=VIRT

Microsoft Virtualization Solutions

http://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&Event http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124558(EXCHG.140).aspx http://blogs.technet.com/exchange

Exchange Server 2010 Guidance

Exchange Team Blog

For More Information

SQL Server SQL Server Virtualization

h ttp :// w w w . m i so ft. co m / sq l rve r/ 2 0 0 8 / e n / u s/ vi a l za ti n . a sp x cro se rtu i o h ttp :// w w w . m i so ft. co m / sq l rve r/ 2 0 0 8 / e n / u s/ w h i -p a p e rs. a sp x cro se te

SQL Server Whitepapers

SQL Server Virtualization Best Practices Webcast

h ttp :// m se ve n ts. m i so ft. co m / C U I W e b C a stE ve n tD e ta i s. a sp x?E ve n tI = 1 0 3 2 4 2 cro / l D

SharePoint Solutions for Optimizing SharePoint

h ttp :// w w w . m i so ft. co m / syste m ce n te r/ e n / u s/ m a n a g i g - m i so ft- a p p l ca ti n s/ cro n cro i o

Microsoft Virtualization Solutions

http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/solution-business-apps.aspx

Microsoft Consulting Services UK SharePoint Blog

h ttp :// b l g s. m sd n . co m / u ksh a re p o i t/ a rch i / 2 0 0 9 / 0 3 / 0 4 / to p i -1 - re co m m e n d a ti o n ve c o

Resources
www.microsoft.com/teched
Sessions On-Demand & Community

ion line .

www.microsoft.com/learning
Microsoft Certification & Training Resources

http://microsoft.com/technet
Resources for IT Professionals

http://microsoft.com/msdn
Resources for Developers

evaluation on CommNet and enter to win!

 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries. The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.