whitepaper dh2i’s dxenterprise for microsoft windows server

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IntroductionServer clutter is an unfortunate fact of life for enterprise IT departments.

Many enterprises maintain several years worth of accumulated Microsoft SQL Server deployments, for example. They may operate SQL Server on almost every version of Windows running in the corporation. Those organizations seek to rationalize this hodgepodge of systems so they are easier to manage.

DH2i’s DxEnterprise for Microsoft Windows ServerA SQL Server Use Case

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Typical Datacenter70% of budget on maintenance30% on IT initiatives to drive value

DH2i-Powered DatacenterAgility to simplify maintenanceShrinks downtime windows

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The objective: Spend less money and fewer resources on maintenance, licenses, and infrastructure, so that more budget can be spent on business-enhancing activities.

In addition, enterprises need to meet service-level agreements (SLAs) and they face increasing pressure to limit downtime to as close to zero as possible. Customers are intolerant of outages in a 24/7 world. An IT shop must have the agility to move workloads around to better balance application performance to available resources and mitigate risk of downtime or disruption.

Against this backdrop, DH2i has launched DxEnterprise, the industry’s first application container management software designed for Windows Server. DxEnterprise containerizes existing Windows Server application services, file shares or SQL Server instances, decoupling them from a physical server, virtual machine or cloud server.

This decoupling makes Window Server application instances highly portable and enables InstanceMobility®, a feature that lets Windows application workloads be moved from any host, to any host, anywhere, with just an application stop start. In addition

App App

Virtual

OS

Physical

OS

Cloud

OS

AppApp

DataData

Data

Data

» A typical datacenter

InstanceMobility® lets Windows application workloads be moved from any host, to any host, anywhere, with

just an application stop-start.

» A DH2i-powered datacenter

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to providing mobility, DxEnterprise makes Windows Server application services (NT services), file shares or SQL Server instances highly available and manageable. The technology puts customers on a path toward nearest-to-zero application downtime.

The software runs on Windows Server 2008R2, 2012, 2012R2, and Windows Server Technical Preview (aka Windows 10 Server edition, currently in beta) 64-bit. It supports any edition of SQL Server 2014, SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2008/R2 and SQL Server 2005 64-bit.

In the case of SQL Server, DxEnterprise containerizes and consolidates SQL Server instances, servers, and storage into manageable utilities for small, medium, and enterprise customers. With DxEnterprise, users can rehost any SQL Server instance quickly and easily with a simple stop and restart.

Windows Server 2008R2

Customers Instance 7

Version: SQL2008R2

Customers Instance 12 Version: SQL2012


IT Inventory Instance 11 Version: SQL2014

Finance Instance 12Version: SQL2008

Manufacturing Instance 4 Version: SQL2012

Inventory Instance 22 Version: SQL2008

IT Instance 14

Version: SQL2012

Manufacturing Instance 1Version: SQL2008

Windows Server 2012

IT Inventory Instance 44Version: SQL2014



Inventory Instance

Version: SQL2008

IT Instance 8

Version: SQL2008R2


IT Inventory Instance 7Version: SQL2012

MS-SQLInstance 1

MS-SQLInstance 1

MS-SQLInstance 1

MS-SQLInstance 1

Windows Server Version Support:

2008R2

2012

2012R2

Windows 10 Server

SQL Server Version Support:

2014

2012

2008

2008R2

2005 64-bit

» InstanceMobility: stop an instance on any host, start it on any host, anywhere

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An instance can be rehosted from one server node to any other, regardless of OS or SQL Server version or edition. This rehosting capability also spans different types of infrastructure: an instance shut down in the cloud can be restored and restarted on a physical or virtual server.

DxEnterprise offers an auto-healing framework for orchestrating SQL Server management, high availability/disaster tolerance and policy-based SLA management. The software is purpose-built to virtualize, consolidate and ensure availability of mission-critical SQL Server instances. DxEnterprise can play a range of roles – from supporting an organization’s most performance-centric instances to managing its most critical instances.

Preparing DxEnterprise: Storage ConfigurationProper storage configuration is particularly important when preparing DxEnterprise to manage SQL Server instances.

DxEnterprise taps native Windows file system (NTFS) and shared storage technology (FC or ISCSI), coordinating access to a pool of disk resources in the cluster. This pool of disk

DxEnterprise’s core capabilities include:

• Application-level high availability, mobility, and disaster recovery for every SQL Server instance, for both onsite and geo-clustering modes

• Intuitive SLA framework with instance-level quality of service (QoS) controls to ensure performance and availability

• Health and performance monitoring with reactive and proactive automation/event handling and alerting

• Robust service-dependency framework to batch and prioritize Windows services as a single workflow

An instance can be rehosted from one server node to any

other, regardless of OS or SQL Server version

or edition.

Rehosting capability also spans different

types of infrastructure: an instance shut down

in the cloud can be restored and restarted on a physical or virtual

server.

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resources provides the foundation for storage virtualization. In storage virtualization, a storage administrator creates virtualized logical unit numbers (LUNs) and volumes that may be allocated to multiple servers. This method stands in contrast to traditional storage architectures in which servers are tethered to specific, physical storage devices. One upshot of storage virtualization: the virtual LUNs and volumes become instantly mobile and presentable to any host an organization desires to be active.

DxEnterprise facilitates such storage virtualization and LUN mobility. But before DxEnterprise can operate and coordinate write access on the shared disks, the shared disks must be put under DxEnterprise management. The Storage Manager component of DxEnterprise lets administrators accomplish that task. Operations such as clean, online, offline disk, create, delete, format, expand, and shrink volume sets are fully supported for DxEnterprise-managed disks and fully cluster-coordinated.

A disk or set of disks under management can be detached at any time. In some cases, a disk may need to be cleaned. DxEnterprise lets administrators delete disk partitions, volumes and any hidden sectors information.

Here’s a summary of DxEnterprise’s key storage management features:

SCSI Reservation: Like other storage technologies, DxEnterprise uses SCSI reservation as the way to fence or designate the current owner of a disk. Various tools often struggle to suss out SCSI reservation information, which may lie hidden within the storage environment. DH2i, however, aims to make the task of managing any disk or storage subsystem SCSI reservation as straightforward as any other normal administrative activity. This DxEnterprise feature only applies to storage devices capable of SCSI-3 persistent reservation.

Extend Volume: DxEnterprise Storage Manager supports both basic and dynamic volumes. Basic volume spans within

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DxEnterprise’s Key Storage Management

Features:

SCSI Reservation

Extend Volume

Shrink Volume

Set Logical Drive

DxEnterprise’s Storage Manager Supports:

Basic and dynamic volumes

Shrinking basic and dynamic volumes

Logical drive letters

One or more mountpoints per

volume

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partitions on the same basic disk, while dynamic volume spans multiple dynamic disks. DxEnterprise’s Storage Manager will automatically convert a basic volume to a dynamic volume when a basic volume expands across multiple disks. The dynamic volume feature is particuarly important since it lets users create and grow a dynamic disk volume from whatever size to greater than multi-exabyte in size, non impactfully to the workload leveraging it. Native Windows Server Failover Clustering, on the other hand, is limited to basic volumes only. Windows clustering confines users to the size of a basic disk which can be limiting if the SAN is unable to extend the LUN.

Shrink Volume: Storage Manager supports shrinking basic and dynamic volume to reclaim unused space.

Set Logical Drive: DxEnterprise supports both a logical drive letter and one or more mountpoints for a formatted volume. If the empty folder(s) for the mountpoint(s) do(es) not exist when the node becomes active, DxEnterprise will ensure the folder(s) is/are created on the fly and the mountpoints are properly set.

This approach prevents pilot error, ensures consistency and eases management provisioning. This feature also frees administrators from pre-creating the empty folder(s) for the mountpoints on each node participating in the cluster.

DxEnterprise: How Does It Work? With the storage configured, organizations can put DxEnterprise into production. Here’s how it works:

DxEnterprise technology decouples application instances such as SQL Server instances from a physical server, VM or cloud server. DH2i uses a lightweight container called a virtual host or Vhost to accomplish this decoupling. Each Vhost consists of a network name/logical computer name, an associated IP address (or addresses), management metadata and portable disk resources for the container. The metadata ensures a Vhost’s

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Using a simple drag-and-drop interface,

applications to be managed are assigned to a virtual host, along

with persistent disk resources.

Using extremely lightweight, agile

container technology, DxEnterprise

decouples application instances from a VM,

physical or cloud server.

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managed application will run on the local operating system and application executable install.

The Vhost container is a high-level abstraction of a host name and IP that lets enterprises stack workloads without the overhead of stacking OSes. Containers stacked on a single virtual machine (VM) or physical server provide significant consolidation efficiencies and opportunities for improving VM or server utilization. To add a SQL Server instance to a Vhost,

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Our logical container (“Vhost”) is a near-

weightless wrapper with a network name

and an IP address. It can be easily

unbound from one host and bound to

another.

» DxEnterprise can be deployed in any environment: physical, virtual, hybrid, or the cloud

VM VM

VM

VM

VM

» DxEnterprise’s logical container or “Vhost”

VM

VMVM

VM

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DxEnterprise “virtualizes” the network name and IP address associated with the SQL Server instance.

This process creates a Virtual SQL Server instance. Clients can then access that SQL Server instance via the Vhost name or IP address; they do not need to know which node is the currently active running node for the SQL Server instance.

Each Vhost can be associated with any number of SQL Server instances. As a consequence, administrators can create multiple Vhosts and spread the primary SQL Server instances among them, depending upon the granularity of mobility desired.Administrators configuring a Vhost define the quorum of nodes to be made eligible to be the active node, and the node failover preference order for that particular Vhost container. The node at the top of the list has the highest preference. Meanwhile, configuring SQL Server clients so they can connect to a SQL Server database requires two steps. First, the SQL clients must specify the fully qualified name or the IP address of the Virtual SQL Server instance. Second, SQL Server clients must specify the static TCP port number of the Virtual SQL Server instance associated with the SQL Server database.

High Availability and FailoverDxEnterprise monitors the health and availability of individual hosted applications and their dependencies to ensure SLAs are achieved. When an application fails, the software will automatically take actions to ensure application availability. As required, and as possible, DxEnterprise will restart the failed application on a different cluster node local or remote.

DxEnterprise also enables failover in the case of planned outages, such as OS updates, or unplanned outages, such as the crash of a primary node. To prepare for an OS update, an administrator first moves the applications off of the node. The update can then be performed and the node rebooted. Those

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Each Vhost can be associated with

any number of SQL Server instances.

DxEnterprise monitors health and availability

of individual applications to

ensure SLAs are achieved.

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actions will have no impact on workloads. Once the node reboots, applications may be moved back to the node.

The DxEnterprise software takes the following actions during a failover:

• Unbinds the IP address for the Vhost from the source node and then adds it to the backup node. For cloud-hosted nodes, the local IP address can be used as a virtual host IP address.

• Updates registry keys and then starts SQL Server instance(s) on the backup node. DxEnterprise includes a registry module that monitors and replicates the registry keys for the SQL Server instance from the local server to a location on the shared storage. If a Vhost fails over to a backup node, that node reads the keys from the shared storage and applies them back before starting the SQL Server instances, ensuring consistency and validity of the SQL Server instance.

When the failover executes, clients using the IP address of the Vhost will access the databases on shared storage. This all takes place via the Virtual SQL Server instance housed on the backup node. But to make this failover scenario happen, the SQL instances associated with a Vhost must be installed on all of the nodes.

The DxEnterprise Application Installer helps administrators accomplish this task. This tool can install any edition or version of SQL Server 2005/2008/2008R2/2012/2014, associated Service Packs, and most to all SQL Server hotfixes.

DH2i strongly recommends that you perform rolling updates for your managed instances starting with the non-active servers first to minimize downtime and provide a rollback option. Once the update is complete on the non-active node, failover the instance to let SQL Server complete inline upgrade of the databases. Confirm that the instance is satisfactory upgraded, then update the remaining server(s).

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DxEnterprise can patch ahead at any

time and roll updates, so that when it comes

to the downtime window, it’s just an application restart.

» DxEnterprise’s self-healing framework restarts a failed application on a different cluster node

ERROR

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DxEnterprise can also streamline patch management. The software pushes updates or hot fixes to all managed SQL Server instances, whether on-premise or in the cloud, from a single point of control.

Administrators can also add generic services to establish another availability layer. These services are often dependencies to a SQL Server workflow. This approach allows for stop/start ordering, ensuring service-level availability. Most Enterprise Windows applications run as a Windows service. DxEnterprise supports the addition of a generic Windows service(s) to a Vhost. When such a service is added, it will follow the Vhost and will be brought online on the active node. This feature is ideal for various backup agents, stand-alone applications and dependent services/applications to SQL Server. In essence, the generic service/application becomes highly available because it is always available through the Vhost endpoint.

Orchestration, Automation and Load BalancingHigh availability and failover aren’t the only ways DxEnterprise provides comprehensive Vhost and Virtual SQL Server instance management.

Orchestration – the ability to automate the task of dependency coordination – ranks as another important DxEnterprise container-management capability. Vhost containers offer multiple workflow insertion points for conditional logic coordination with event handling. Thus, containerized applications with dependencies can be controlled and managed using policies.

DxEnterprise’s SLA framework, meanwhile, also offers per-instance prioritization, pooling for automation, as well as individual instance-level QoS resource-contention controls for CPU, memory networking and I/O. These controls enable the safe stacking of SQL Server instances on any physical or

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» DxEnterprise provides streamlined patch management by pushing updates to all managed SQL Server instances from a single point of control

Dependency coordination is made

easy as conditional logic is embedded

into DxEnterprise on a per-application basis.

This enables simple failover to full DR

playbook automation —or anywhere in

between.

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virtual host. The software handles resource-contention issues, making sure SQL Server instances “play nice” in any given OS environment.

For example, DxEnterprise can move a constrained application to alleviate resource contention. Or, if the constrained application is a higher priority, the software can make lower-priority workloads move off the node to free up resources.

As for load balancing, DxEnterprise has a policy-driven system resource monitor and load balancer designed to maintain ideal operating conditions for hosted applications. When systems fail or when load conditions change, DxEnterprise can ensure that all database instances remain within SLA requirements.

The software offers two controls for resource contention, alerting and load balancing: performance thresholds and resource allocation. A performance threshold refers to the conditional value that reflects whether or not a policy is considered exceeded.

For processor resources, this value is expressed in units of percentages, while the value is stated as megabytes for memory resources and kilobytes per second for disk and network I/O. DxEnterprise’s resource allocation policies, meanwhile, can define an SLA for each SQL Server instance. This helps ensure the availability of specific resources to each instance. The resource allocation policies also raise administrative alerts if the allocations cannot be met.

Administrators may set two types of policies under DxEnterprise: a system policy defined for a cluster member node and an instance policy defined for an application, such as a SQL Server instance or an NT Service.

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» Easily perform a tech refresh by installing application templates to the new host, adding the new host to the desired Vhost, and removing the node to be retired. No data migration needed.

DxEnterprise’s resource manager

allows you to describe the

resources available around your cluster

and the resources you wish to provide to

each instance under management.

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Uninterrupted and Non-Impacted Self UpdateWhen DxEnterprise software itself requires an update or when user application requires detailed troubleshooting, diagnostic and isolation, DxEnterprise software can be safely uninstalled without affecting or interrupting active SQL Server instances. The administrator simply freezes the node and uninstalls DxEnterprise software.

When a node is in the “frozen” state, it is no longer eligible to be the failover target for the cluster. Yet all active applications continue running locally and unaffected without DxEnterprise software running.

If the node is to rejoin the cluster and to re-participate in the regular failover topology, the administrator simply installs the same, or a newer, version of DxEnterprise software and then unfreezes the node.

Other DxEnterprise Management FeaturesDxEnterprise software includes a notification manager, which sends dispatches to the appropriate personnel when a particular system event is triggered; cluster passkey, which enables secret-key encryption for secure communication; a full command-line interface; and PowerShell cmdlets for ease of integration and customization.

Conclusion Enterprise IT departments want to liberate a bigger chunk of their budgets for innovation as opposed to keep-the-lights-on maintenance activities. But growing companies are frequently tempted to acquire more and more servers and applications to deal with expansion. The rampant purchasing of systems, however, assures that there will be more items to maintain going forward.

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Gain the control and agility to balance the

maintenance you have to do with the

innovations you want to do.

DxEnterprise software can be

safely uninstalled without affecting or

interrupting active SQL Server instances.

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SQL Server deployments contribute to the mass of systems that IT departments must monitor, patch and update. DH2i’s DxEnterprise offers a way off the maintenance treadmill. DxEnterprise lets administrators consolidate SQL Server instances across both virtual and physical server environments. In addition, the software offers a comprehensive set of management features that provide high availability, failover, orchestration and load balancing among among other benefits.

As previously noted, DxEnterprise spans a range of Windows technologies, beyond SQL Server. The software lends mobility and high availability to Windows Server application services, file shares or SQL Server instances. Windows application workloads become instantly portable from any host to any host with just an application stop/start.

Key benefits include the ability to reduce software and infrastructure costs by 30 to 60 percent and the elimination of significant lifecycle management costs, resource requirements and time. In addition, DxEnterprise can reduce or eliminate the proliferation of virtual instances and OSes, achieve nearest-to-zero application downtime and protect organizations from OS, application and infrastructure faults.

DxEnterprise is the solution to SQL Server, OS and virtualization sprawl. Sign up for a free trial to learn how you can break away from Windows datacenter complexity, OS sprawl and suffocating licensing costs.

Try DxEnterprise for free:

dh2i.com/trial

DxEnterprise isn’t restricted by licensing

since it doesn’t move the OS—just an

application. Use it to reduce software and

infrastructure costs by 30 to 60%.

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whitepaper dh2i’s dxenterprise for microsoft windows server

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