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Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE Summary .............................................................................................................................................................. 2

BUSINESS CASE ............................................................................................................................................................................... 2 BUSINESS VALUES .......................................................................................................................................................................... 3 KEY RESULTS ................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 AUDIENCE .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 4

TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW .................................................................................................................................................... 4

VMWARE CLOUD FOUNDATION .................................................................................................................................................... 4 DELL EMC VXRAIL HYPERCONVERGED PLATFORM ............................................................................................................... 6 MICROSOFT WINDOWS SERVER ................................................................................................................................................... 6 MICROSOFT SQL SERVER............................................................................................................................................................. 7

SOLUTION CONFIGURATION ............................................................................................................................................... 7

ARCHITECTURE DIAGRAM .............................................................................................................................................................. 7 HARDWARE RESOURCES ............................................................................................................................................................... 8 SOFTWARE RESOURCES ................................................................................................................................................................ 9 NETWORK CONFIGURATION .......................................................................................................................................................... 9 VIRTUAL MACHINE CONFIGURATION ......................................................................................................................................... 10

SOLUTION VALIDATION ........................................................................................................................................................ 13

TEST OVERVIEW............................................................................................................................................................................. 13 TESTING TOOLS ............................................................................................................................................................................. 13 DEPLOY VMWARE CLOUD FOUNDATION ON VXRAIL ............................................................................................................ 13 SQL SERVER DATABASE SIZING TEST .................................................................................................................................... 14

BEST PRACTICES .................................................................................................................................................................... 18

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................................................. 18

SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 18

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ............................................................................................................................................................. 20

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Executive Summary

Business Case

Customers wanting to deploy virtualized SQL Server infrastructure require a cost-effective, highly scalable, and an

easy-to-manage solution. While the traditional ways to manage the infrastructure involves many physical server

installations, storage manual configurations, and network management, VMware Cloud Foundation™ accelerates

infrastructure provisioning with full stack consisting of compute, storage, networking, and management. Through

automatic and reliable deployment of multiple workload domains, it increases admin productivity while reducing

overall TCO to deliver a faster path to a hybrid cloud.

VMware Cloud Foundation is built on VMware’s leading hyperconverged architecture, VMware vSAN™, with all-flash

performance and enterprise-class storage services including deduplication, compression and erasure coding. vSAN

implements hyperconverged storage architecture, by delivering an elastic storage and simplifying the storage

management. VMware Cloud foundation also delivers end-to-end security for all applications by implementing micro-

segmentation, distributed firewalls, VPN (VMware NSX®); VM, hypervisor, VMware vSphere® vMotion® encryption,

and AI-powered workload security and visibility (vSphere); and data-at-rest storage encryption (vSAN).

Figure 1. VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail

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VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail™ builds upon native VxRail and Cloud Foundation capabilities with

unique integration features jointly engineered between Dell EMC and VMware that simplify, streamline, and automate

the operations of your entire SDDC from Day 0 through Day 2 operations. The full stack integration with Cloud

Foundation on VxRail allows both HCI infrastructure layer and VMware cloud software stack lifecycle to be managed

as one, complete, automated, turnkey hybrid cloud experience greatly reducing risk and increasing IT operational

efficiency. This solution also allows to perform cloud operations through a familiar set of tools, offering a consistent

experience, with a single vendor support relationship and consistent SLAs across all your cloud workloads, public and

private cloud, as well as edge deployments.

In this solution, we provide deployment procedures, design and sizing guidance, best practices for enterprise

infrastructure administrators and application owners to run virtualized SQL Server workload on the Cloud Foundation

platform.

Business Values

Here are top 5 benefits to deploy SQL Server in a VMware Cloud Foundation and VxRail environment:

• Rapid deployment and configuration: Native VxRail deployment process of HCI infrastructure and SDDC

Manager Orchestration in single deployment workflow of vCenter, NSX and vRealize Suite above the ESXi

and vSAN layers of VxRail.

• High Performance & Scalable Hyperconverged Storage: Ensure consistent performance and predictable

scalability for mission-critical SQL Server OLTP workloads, which makes instance design and database

sizing easier for SQL Server administrators.

• Automated Lifecycle Management: Minimize SQL Server workload impact and downtime during necessary

patching and upgrading of the full private cloud stack using automated and self-managed services within the

workload domain.

• End-to-End Security: Enhance compute, network and storage security with vSphere, NSX and vSAN

technologies such as vSphere vMotion encryption, micro-segmentation, and data-at-rest storage encryption

for SQL Server virtual machines. VxRail has security built in at every level of the integrated technology stack.

• Simple Path to Hybrid Cloud: Connect private and public cloud seamlessly and empower SQL Server

compatibility of heterogeneous and distributed dataset with features such as Stretch Database and

PolyBase.

Key Results

This reference architecture is a showcase of VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail for operating and

managing Microsoft SQL Server database workloads in a fully integrated SDDC environment. Key results can be

summarized as following:

• VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail simplifies and accelerates the necessary virtual infrastructure

deployment desired for SQL Server workloads with single workflow containing all individual sub tasks.

• The HCI platform, specifically VxRail in this solution, provides linear scalability and predictable performance

capability for SQL Server TPC-E like workloads.

• A SQL Server virtual infrastructure workload domain consisting of four VxRail P570F nodes is capable of

servicing up to 10,567 TPC-E like transaction per second with 26 milliseconds (ms) transactional response

time. The peak SQL Server VM IOPS was 9,438 and 5,408 with sub-millisecond response time. At the same

time, the VxRail cluster peak CPU utilization is up to 70.26 percent, there is still room to service more SQL

Server workload.

Note: The performance results in this solution are validated on the HCI platform of VMware Cloud

Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail, which is also applied to general VMware vSAN with the similar

configurations.

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Audience

This solution is intended for IT administrators, SQL Server DBAs, storage experts who are involved in the early phases of planning, design, and deployment of virtualized SQL Server workloads on VMware Cloud Foundation and Dell EMC VxRail. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the concepts and operations of Microsoft SQL Server, VMware Cloud Foundation related components and Dell EMC VxRail.

Technology Overview

Solution technology components are listed below:

• VMware Cloud Foundation

o VMware vSphere

o VMware vSAN

o VMware NSX Data Center

o VMware vRealize Suite

• Dell EMC VxRail

• Microsoft Windows Server

• Microsoft SQL Server

VMware Cloud Foundation

VxRail is the only jointly engineered HCI system with deep VMware Cloud Foundation integration. VMware Cloud

Foundation is an integrated software stack that bundles compute virtualization (VMware vSphere), storage

virtualization (VMware vSAN), network virtualization (VMware NSX), and cloud management and monitoring (VMware

vRealize Suite) into a single platform that can be deployed on premises as a private cloud or run as a service within a

public cloud. This documentation focuses on the private cloud use case. VMware Cloud Foundation helps to break

down the traditional administrative silos in data centers, merging compute, storage, network provisioning, and cloud

management to facilitate end-to-end support for application deployment.

VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail is a solution offering that provides best-in-class serviceability and

lifecycle management capabilities for customers looking to automate the deployment and management of the full

VMware Software Defined Datacenter (SDDC) stack on Dell EMC VxRail:

• VxRail integration with VCF delivers a simple and direct path to the hybrid cloud with one, complete,

automated platform.

• VCF on VxRail delivers unique integrations with Cloud Foundation to offer a seamless, automated upgrade

experience.

VMware vSphere VMware vSphere is the next-generation infrastructure for next-generation applications. It provides a powerful, flexible,

and secure foundation for business agility that accelerates the digital transformation to cloud computing and promotes

success in the digital economy. vSphere 6.7 supports both existing and next-generation applications through its:

• Simplified customer experience for automation and management at scale

• Comprehensive built-in security for protecting data, infrastructure, and access

• Universal application platform for running any application anywhere

With VMware vSphere, customers can run, manage, connect, and secure their applications in a common operating

environment, across clouds and devices.

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VMware vSAN VMware vSAN is the industry-leading software powering VMware’s software defined storage and HCI solution. vSAN helps customers evolve their data center without risk, control IT costs and scale to tomorrow’s business needs. vSAN, native to the market-leading hypervisor, delivers flash-optimized, secure storage for all of your critical vSphere workloads, and is built on industry-standard x86 servers and components that help lower TCO in comparison to traditional storage. It delivers the agility to easily scale IT and offers the industry’s first native HCI encryption.

In the vSAN 6.7 U3 release, it provides performance improvements and availability SLAs on all-flash configurations

with deduplication enabled. Latency sensitive applications have better performance in terms of predictable I/O

latencies and increased sequential I/O throughput. Rebuild times on disk and node failures are shorter, which

provides better availability SLAs. The 6.7 U3 release also support cloud native storage that provides comprehensive

data management for stateful applications. With Cloud Native Storage, vSphere persistent storage integrates with

Kubernetes.

vSAN simplifies day-1 and day-2 operations, and customers can quickly deploy and extend cloud infrastructure and

minimize maintenance disruptions. Stateful containers orchestrated by Kubernetes can leverage storage exposed by

vSphere (vSAN, VMFS, NFS) while using standard Kubernetes volume, persistent volume, and dynamic provisioning

primitives.

See VMware vSAN 6.7 Update 3 Release Notes for more details.

VMware NSX Data Center VMware NSX Data Center is the network virtualization and security platform that enables the virtual cloud network, a

software-defined approach to networking that extends across data centers, clouds, and application frameworks. With

NSX Data Center, networking and security are brought closer to the application wherever it’s running, from virtual

machines to containers to bare metal. Like the operational model of VMs, networks can be provisioned and managed

independent of underlying hardware. NSX Data Center reproduces the entire network model in software, enabling any

network topology—from simple to complex multitier networks—to be created and provisioned in seconds. Users can

create multiple virtual networks with diverse requirements, leveraging a combination of the services offered via NSX

or from a broad ecosystem of third-party integrations ranging from next-generation firewalls to performance

management solutions to build inherently more agile and secure environments. These services can then be extended

to a variety of endpoints within and across clouds.

In this solution, we use VMware NSX Data Center for vSphere to form the foundation of the software-defined data

center (SDDC) and make operationalizing zero-trust security for SQL Server database applications attainable and

efficient in both private and public cloud environments.

VMware vRealize Suite vRealize Suite is a hybrid cloud management platform that helps IT enable developers to quickly build applications in

any cloud with secure and consistent operations. It provides developer-friendly infrastructure (supporting VMs and

containers) and a common approach to hybrid and multi-cloud, supporting major public clouds such as Amazon Web

Services, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

VMware vRealize Suite delivers an enterprise-proven, hybrid cloud management platform (CMP) that includes the

following products:

• vRealize Automation—Self-service hybrid clouds, multi-cloud automation and governance, DevOps service

delivery and Kubernetes cluster management.

• vRealize Operations—Powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), continuous

performance optimization, proactive capacity and cost management, intelligent remediation and integrated

compliance.

• vRealize® Log Insight™—Real-time log management and log analysis.

• vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager—Automated installation, configuration, upgrade, patching, configuration

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management, drift remediation, health and content management for vRealize Suite.

In this solution, we deployed two vRealize Operations appliances to monitor the SQL Server virtual infrastructure

workload domain and three vRealize Log Insight appliances to provide real-time log management and analysis.

Dell EMC VxRail Hyperconverged Platform

The only fully integrated, pre-configured, and pre-tested VMware hyperconverged system optimized for VMware

vSAN and VMware Cloud Foundation, VxRail transforms HCI networking and simplifies VMware cloud adoption, while

meeting any HCI use case - including support for many of the most demanding workloads and applications. Powered

by Dell EMC PowerEdge server platforms and VxRail HCI System Software, VxRail features next-generation

technology to future proof your infrastructure and enable deep integration across the VMware ecosystem. Advanced

VMware hybrid cloud integration and automation simplifies deployment of a secure VxRail cloud infrastructure.

Dell EMC VxRail provides advanced automation, making it easier for you from day one forward, allowing you to

further simplify IT infrastructure and operations. VxRail on next generation PowerEdge servers are refined, optimized,

and robust platforms that help you simplify your entire IT lifecycle – from deployment, to management, to scaling, to

maintaining.

VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail delivers unique integrations with Cloud Foundation to offer a seamless,

automated upgrade experience. All of this enables customers to experience both the HCI infrastructure layer and

cloud software stack in one complete, automated lifecycle, and turnkey experience.

In this solution, we use SDDC Manager to orchestrate the deployment, configuration and lifecycle management of

vCenter, NSX and vRealize Suite above the ESXi and vSAN layers of VxRail, which unifies multiple VxRail clusters as

workload domains or as multi-cluster workload domains. We use VxRail Manager to deploy, configure and lifecycle

manage ESXi, vSAN and hardware firmware with native process, which also monitors health of hardware components

and provides remote service support.

Figure 2. VxRail Manager and SDDC Manager Integration

Microsoft Windows Server

The latest Windows Server 2019 is the operating system that bridges on-premises environments with the cloud,

adding additional layers of security while helping you modernize your applications and infrastructure. Windows Server

2019 evolve datacenter infrastructure, helping to achieve unique hybrid capabilities with identity platform built on SQL

Server technologies, enhanced security to secure the operating system, and faster application innovation with

container technologies. See Windows Server for more details.

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Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server enables users to build modern applications using the language of your choice, on-premises and

in the cloud, now on Windows, Linux and Docker containers. SQL Server 2017 focuses heavily on developer

enablement with Microsoft support for SQL Server on Linux—it can be deployed in container platforms such as

Docker, Open Shift, and Kubernetes. Microsoft has added adaptive query processing, which introduces new

techniques for adapting SQL Server to specific application workload characteristics.

Note: This solution is validated based on SQL Server 2017, the result of which may also apply to the latest 2019

release.

Solution Configuration

This section introduces the resources and configurations:

• Architecture diagram

• Hardware resources

• Software resources

• Network configuration

• Virtual machine configuration

Architecture Diagram

In this solution, we deployed Microsoft SQL Server 2017 test environment using VMware Cloud Foundation for

VxRail. We created a 4-node VxRail P570F cluster for VMware Cloud Foundation management cluster, running

multiple virtual machines and appliances including:

• A management vCenter Server appliance and two Platform Service Controllers

• A management NSX Manager and three NSX controllers (NSX-V)

• A VxRail Manager appliance

• A vRealize Lifecycle Manager appliance

• Two vRealize Operations appliances

• Three vRealize Log Insight appliances

• A Virtual Infrastructure (VI) workload NSX Manager

• A VI workload vCenter Server appliance

For the SQL Server workload domain cluster, we created another 4-node VxRail P570F cluster and deployed four

SQL Server virtual machines with different sizing scale described as follows:

• Small-sized SQL Server virtual machine with 8 vCPU and 32GB memory for 100GB databases

• Medium-sized SQL Server virtual machine with 16 vCPU and 64GB memory for 300GB databases

• Large-sized SQL Server virtual machine with 32 vCPU and 128GB memory for 600GB databases

The SQL Server workload, powered by a TPC-E like benchmark, simulated a brokerage system of traditional OLTP

workload profile. A VxRail Manager and three workload NSX-V controllers were also deployed in the workload domain

cluster, as shown in Figure 3.

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Figure 3. SQL Server on VMware Cloud Foundation Solution Architecture

Hardware Resources

In this solution, we used a total of eight VxRail R570F platforms each configured with two disk groups, and each disk

group consists of one cache-tier write-intensive SAS SSD and four capacity-tier read-intensive SAS SSDs.

Each VxRail node in the cluster had the following configuration:

Table 1 Hardware Configuration for VxRail

PROPERTY SPECIF ICAT ION

Server model name

8 x VxRail P570F

CPU 2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8180M CPU @ 2.50GHz, 28 core each

RAM 512GB

Network adapter 2 x Broadcom BCM57414 NetXtreme-E 10Gb/25Gb RDMA Ethernet Controller

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Storage adapter 1 x Dell HBA330 Adapter

Disks Cache - 2 x 800GB Write Intensive SAS SSDs

Capacity - 8 x 3.84TB Read Intensive SAS SSDs

Software Resources

Table 2 shows the software resources used in this solution.

Table 2 Software Resources

Network Configuration

Figure 4 shows the VMware vSphere Distributed Switch configuration for the SQL Server VI workload domain of the

VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail. Two 25 GbE vmnics were used and configured with different teaming policies.

The NSX-V controllers resided on the management port group of the vDS, and the VxRail Manager was on another

VxRail management port group. The SQL Server virtual machines were configured with a VM network on the vDS.

vSphere vMotion, vSAN, and VXLAN VTEP for NSX-V had a dedicated port group created as shown in table 3.

Table 3 Virtual Distributed Switch Teaming Policy for 2x25 GbE Profile

1 For more details, refer to VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail Architecture Guide.

SOFTWARE VERSION PURPOSE

VMware Cloud Foundation

on Dell EMC VxRail 3.8.1

A unified SDDC platform on Dell EMC VxRail that brings together VMware

ESXi, vSAN, NSX and optionally, vRealize Suite components, into a natively

integrated stack to deliver enterprise-ready cloud infrastructure for the private

and public cloud.

See BOM of VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail for details.

Windows Server 2019 Standard Operating system

Microsoft SQL Server

2017

2017 Enterprise

Edition, RTM-CU17 Database server platform

Benchmark Factory for

Databases 8.1 SQL Server OLTP workload generate tool

PORT GROUP TEAMING POLICY VMNIC0 VMNIC1

Management network Route based on Physical NIC load Active Active1

VxRail Management Route based on the originating virtual port Active Standby

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Figure 4. Virtual Distributed Switch Configuration

Virtual Machine Configuration

The VMware Cloud Foundation management domain virtual machine configuration in this solution is described in

VM network Route based on Physical NIC load Active Active

vSphere vMotion Route based on Physical NIC load Active Active

vSAN Route based on Physical NIC load Active Active

VXLAN VTEP Route based on the originating virtual port Active Active

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table 4.

Table 4 Management Domain Virtual Machine Configuration

V M RO LE V CP U ME MO RY (G B) V M CO UNT

Management Domain VxRail Manager 2 8 1

Management Domain vCenter Server 16 24 1

Platform Server Controller 2 4 2

SDDC Manager 4 16 1

Management Domain NSX Manager 4 16 1

Management Domain NSX Controller 4 4 3

VI Workload Domain vCenter Server 16 24 1

VI Workload Domain NSX Manager 4 16 1

vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 4 16 1

vRealize Operations 8 32 2

vRealize Log Insight 8 16 3

Cloud Builder 4 8 1

The SQL Server VI workload virtual machine configuration in this solution is described in table 5.

Table 5 SQL Server VI Workload Virtual Machine Configuration

V M RO LE V CP U ME MO RY

(G B)

V M

CO UNT V I RT UAL D I S KS

S CS I I D

(CO NT RO LLE R,

LUN)

S CS I T Y PE

Small-sized SQL

Server VM 8 32 4

OS disk: 40 GB x 1 SCSI (0, 0) LSI Logic

SQL Server data

disk

1 ~ 4: 40 GB x 4

SCSI (1, 0) –

SCSI (1, 3) VMware Paravirtual

SQL Server

tempdb and log

disk:

40 GB x 1

SCSI (2, 0) VMware Paravirtual

Medium-sized

SQL Server VM 16 64 4

OS disk: 40 GB x 1 SCSI (0, 0) LSI Logic

SQL Server data

disk

1 ~ 4: 120 GB x 4

SCSI (1, 0) –

SCSI (1, 3) VMware Paravirtual

SQL Server

tempdb and log

disk:

120 GB x 1

SCSI (2, 0) VMware Paravirtual

Large-sized SQL

Server VM 32 128 4

OS disk: 40 GB x 1 SCSI (0, 0) LSI Logic

SQL Server data

disk

1 ~ 4: 250 GB x 4

SCSI (1, 0) –

SCSI (1, 3) VMware Paravirtual

SQL Server

tempdb and log

disk:

250 GB x 1

SCSI (2, 0) VMware Paravirtual

SQL Server VI

Workload

VxRail Manager

2 8 1

OS disk 1: 16 GB x

1 SCSI (0, 0) LSI Logic

OS disk 2: 16 GB x

1 SCSI (0, 1) LSI Logic

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SQL Server VI

Workload

NSX Controller

4 4 3 OS disk: 28 GB x 1 SCSI (0, 0) LSI Logic

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Solution Validation

Test Overview

This solution simulated a TPC-E like database workload for Microsoft SQL Server 2017 running on VMware Cloud

Foundation powered by Dell EMC VxRail. It demonstrated the deployment agility, performance scalability, and

management simplicity for SQL Server database workloads.

Testing Tools

We used the following monitoring tools and benchmark tools in the solution testing:

• Monitoring tools

vSAN Performance Service

vSAN Performance Service is used to monitor the performance of the vSAN environment, using the vSphere web client. The performance service collects and analyzes performance statistics and displays the data in a graphical format. You can use the performance charts to manage your workload and determine the root cause of problems.

vSAN Health Check

vSAN Health Check delivers a simplified troubleshooting and monitoring experience of all things related to vSAN. Through the vSphere web client, it offers multiple health checks specifically for vSAN including cluster, hardware compatibility, data, limits, physical disks. It is used to check the vSAN health before the mixed-workload environment deployment.

VMware vRealize® Operations™

vSphere 6.7 and later releases include vRealize Operations within vCenter. This new feature allows vSphere customers to see a subset of intelligence offered up by vRealize Operations through a single vCenter user interface. Light-weight purpose-built dashboards are included for both vSphere and vSAN. It is easy to deploy, provides multi-cluster visibility, and does not require any additional licensing.

Windows Performance Monitor

Windows Performance Monitor is a Windows tool that enables users to capture statistics about CPU, memory, and disk utilization from operating system levels. It also provides counters for monitoring SQL Server and Exchange performance and status.

• Database generation tool

Benchmark Factory for Databases

Benchmark Factory for Databases (BMF) is a database workload generation tool that can conduct industry-standard benchmark testing and scalability testing. With Benchmark Factory for databases, you can make changes to your database environment, and mitigate the risks of planned database changes. We used this tool to generate SQL Server database TPC-E like OLTP workload.

Deploy VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail

Deployment Overview We deployed four VxRail for the VMware Cloud Foundation management cluster and another four VxRail for the

VMware Cloud Foundation virtual infrastructure workload domain dedicated for SQL Server workloads. It is highly

recommended to follow the steps described in VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail documentation. For

more details and instructions, contact VMware and Dell EMC Customer Services or your sales representative.

Figure 5 shows the management domain and VI workload domain cluster created for SQL Server in this solution:

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Figure 5. Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain Created in the SDDC Manager

SQL Server Database Sizing Test

Test Objective This test was designed to demonstrate the performance scalability of different SQL Server instance configuration and

database size running on VMware Cloud Foundation powered by VxRail.

Test Scenario Table 6 describes three test scenarios defined in this solution. We allocated 2GB memory for the operating system

and set the SQL Server instance maximum and minimum memory with the rest memory.

Table 6. Database Sizing Test Scenarios

Test Round Test Scenario Database size # of VMs VM vCPU VM Memory

1 Small size database

sizing test

100GB 4 8 32GB

(30GB allocated to SQL Server)

2 Medium size database

sizing test

300GB 4 16 64GB

(62GB allocated to SQL Server)

3 Large size database

sizing test

600GB 4 32 128GB

(126GB allocated to SQL Server)

Test Procedures As we added more Benchmark factory virtual users to generate TPC-E like OLTP workload against the SQL Server

instance in the sizing test, we defined that test stop criteria was the database transactional response time reached 30

milliseconds. The test procedures were described as follows:

1. For small size database, start the TPC-E OLTP like workload with 10 virtual users against all four virtual machines. Test duration is set for 1 hour, whereas the first 15 minutes known as pre-sampling stage and the second 45 minutes known as the sampling stage. Measure the relevant performance result such as TPS (Transaction Per Second) and transactional response time.

2. Add 10 more virtual users and perform the test described in step 1 until the transaction response time reaches above 30 milliseconds. Measure the relevant performance result and draw a sizing curve of TPS and transactional response time for SQL Server small size database workload.

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3. Perform the same test described in step 1 and step 2 for medium size database and large size database respectively.

Test Results Figure 6 shows the TPC-E like OLTP performance result in the sizing test for small size database (100GB). The TPS

result was bounded due to virtual machine CPU utilization limitation (up to 96.41 percent usage), with the best TPS

reached 5,669.19 for 20 virtual users load and 14 ms transactional response time. At the same time, the response

time scaled linearly as the user count grew. The maximum BMF user count to drive 30 ms transactional response time

was between 40 and 50 virtual users.

User 10 20 30 40 50

TPS 5493.985 5669.187 5664.071 5653.709 5636.975

RT 7 14 21 28 34.5

VM CPU % 88.609 96.406 96.276 96.308 95.491 Figure 6. Small Size Database Sizing Test Results

Figure 7 shows the TPC-E like OLTP performance result in the sizing test for medium size database (300GB). Again,

the TPS result was bounded due to virtual machine CPU utilization limitation (up to 95.96% usage). The TPS result

was near-linear scaled before 50 virtual users, and the transactional response time scaled linearly as we tested up to

60 virtual users.

The best TPS result was 50 virtual users with 7,889.67 TPS and 25 milliseconds transactional response time, and the

maximum BMF user count to drive 30 milliseconds transactional response time was between 50 and 60 virtual users.

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User 10 20 30 40 50 60 TPS 6027.522 6785.638 7302.166 7666.771 7889.662 7555.518 RT 7 12 16 20.75 25 31.25 VM CPU % 85.652 91.511 95.083 95.961 95.765 94.729 Figure 7. Medium Size Database Sizing Test Results

Figure 8 shows the TPC-E like OLTP performance result in the sizing test for large size database (600GB). The TPS

and transactional response time scaled linearly as we increased the virtual user count. The best TPS achieved in this

test round was 10,567.21 with 26 ms transactional response time, and the maximum BMF user count to drive 30

milliseconds transactional response time was 80 virtual users.

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User 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 TPS 6009 7075.417 8484.602 9232.854 9877.163 10352.904 10567.215 10510.061 RT 7 11.5 14.25 17.25 20.75 23 26 30 VM CPU % 27.548 55.345 67.095 78.817 84.26 87.518 90.904 90.649 Figure 8. Large Size Database Sizing Test Results

Table 7 shows the peak vSAN VM and backend performance in the sizing test.

Metrics Value

Peak ESXi CPU usage 70.26%

Peak VM read IOPS 9,438

Peak VM read latency 1.091 ms

Peak VM write IOPS 5,408

Peak VM write latency 1.172 ms

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Best Practices

In this solution, we validated the SQL Server TPC-E like OLTP workload and measured the performance in TPS and

transactional response time metrics.

The following recommendations provide the best practices and sizing guidance to run SQL Server on VMware Cloud

Foundation on VxRail.

• Cloud management consideration:

o See vRealize Operations Manager Best Practices best practices for details.

o See Architecting a VMware vRealize Log Insight Solution for VMware Cloud Providers for details.

• Compute consideration:

o A minimum compute resource Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) for SQL Server virtual machine can be defined

as 1vCPU and 4GB memory. Take small-size database for example, we allocated 8 compute SKU for

the virtual machine, and achieved the best 5,669 TPS with 4 virtual machines in total. However, the

performance is bounded with the virtual machine CPU utilization. If the small-size database is desired

for more TPS, simply add more compute SKU to the virtual machine. The compute resource allocation of

SQL Server virtual machine can be affected by the database size, transaction load and the number of

connection users.

o Leave at least 2GB memory for operating system. It is recommended to set the identical value for SQL

Server instance minimum and maximum memory to allow a fixed buffer pool size.

• Network consideration:

o Separate physical network using different network range and VLAN ID for management, vSphere

vMotion, vSAN, VM Network and VXLAN VTEP network.

o For NSX Data Center for vSphere design best practices for workload domain, see VMware NSX for

vSphere (NSX) Network Virtualization Design Guide.

• Storage consideration:

o Follow the generic best practices for Architecting Microsoft SQL Server on VMware vSphere.

o For different type of database workload, create a dedicated vSAN storage policy for management and

isolation purpose.

o Consider using different “Failures to tolerate” options with RAID 5 or RAID 6 to improve space efficiency

and protection SLAs for SQL Server database data disks. Use RAID 1—Mirroring for log disks.

o Consider increasing “Number of disk stripes per object” for better object spreading if it is a bandwidth

demanding database workload, for example, OLAP workloads and backups.

Conclusion

Summary

VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail is the hybrid cloud platform for running enterprise SQL Server

database workloads. Powered by VMware vSphere, vSAN, NSX Data Center, vRealize Suite, and Dell EMC VxRail,

this platform allows IT administrators to enable fast cloud deployment, achieve better scalability for performance,

ensure infrastructure and application security, monitor data center operational health, and lower TCO expenditure.

In this solution, we validated Microsoft SQL Server running on VMware Cloud Foundation powered by Dell EMC

VxRail. We deployed the entire test environment with agility by using Dell EMC VxRail and VMware SDDC Manager,

R E F E R E N C E A R C H I T E C T U R E / 1 9

and validated SQL Server scalable performance with different VM configuration and database size. The test result

showcased a near-linear scalability for SQL Server TPS against the virtual user count increasement under a TPC-E

like benchmark, and we evaluated the maximum TPS achieved with 30 millisecond transactional response time.

Copyright © 2019 VMware, Inc. (with portions by Dell, Inc or its other subsidiaries). All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property

laws. VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at vmware.com/go/patents. VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. and its subsidiaries in the

United States and other jurisdictions. Dell Technologies, Dell, EMC, Dell EMC, VxRail and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All other marks and names mentioned

herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. Item No: vmw-wp-temp-word-104-proof 5/19

Reference

• VMware Cloud Foundation

• Dell EMC VxRail

• VMware vSphere

• VMware vSAN

• VMware NSX Data Center

• VMware vRealize Suite

• VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC VxRail Admin Guide

• VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail Architecture Guide

• Microsoft SQL Server

• Benchmark Factory for Databases

About the Author

Mark Xu, Solutions Architect in the Solutions Architecture team of the Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) Business Unit, wrote the original version of this paper.

The following reviewers also contributed to the paper contents:

• Victor Dery, Senior Principal Engineer of VxRail Technical Marketing in Dell EMC

• William Leslie, Senior Manager of VxRail Product Management in Dell EMC

• Tony Wu, Senior Solutions Architect in the Solutions Architecture team of the HCI Business Unit in VMware

• Chen Wei, Staff Solutions Architect in the Solutions Architecture team of the HCI Business Unit in VMware

• Dinara Alieva, Senior Product Marketing Manager of the HCI Business Unit in VMware