SQL Server Management Perfected - Ensuring Database Performance in the Face of Today’s IT Trends

SQL Server Management Perfected Ensuring Database Performance in the Face of Todays IT Trends

January 2014

2 Room for text Global Marketing

Intro

The life of a database administrator (DBA) is often stressful, as they find themselves responsible to ensure peak performance and troubleshoot issues in increasingly complex IT environments with more and more data.

Organizations today are using multiple database platforms, embracing cloud technologies and generating enormous volumes of data. These major trends increase the pressure on DBAs to proactively find and address performance issues, even as budgets tighten.

Based off of Dell Softwares latest whitepaper, SQL Server Management Perfected Ensuring Database Performance in the Face of Todays IT Trends, (click to download) this presentation will highlight the broad IT trends that impact database environments and the resulting challenges for DBAs. It will also showcase the ways in which Dell Spotlight on SQL Server (click for free trial) will help DBAs rest easy and deliver the high service levels organizations require today.


IT Trends Driving Database Complexity

Data Center Complexity

Data centers are becoming more complex in several different ways.

Environments are more heterogeneous A recent Dell customer survey

revealed the usage of multiple platforms: Oracle, MySQL and SQL Server to name a few.

Mix of virtual and physical servers Forces some DBAs to take on a dual

role as virtualization admins.



Cloud Computing The Great Debate

According to research reported by Forbes, the worldwide cloud computing market will grow at 36 percent compound annual growth rate through 2016, reaching a market size of $19.5B by 2016. Cloud computing will lead to a major shift in DB infrastructure and require major upgrades. There are 2 types of cloud data base environments: private and public.

Based on the decision of the organization, private and public clouds impact internal databases differently and DBAs must monitor the cloud environment.



Cloud Computing Private Clouds

-A private cloud is an internally hosted database environment, which provides flexibility in managing hardware resources as shared resource pools.

-Databases can be spun up or shut down on demand and resources can be allocated on the fly.

-A virtualization platform (or even multiple ones) behind the scenes powers this private cloud infrastructure.



Cloud Computing Public Clouds

-A public cloud is a database hosted outside of the companys network using a third-party provider, i.e. Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure.

-In public cloud environments, the third party provides the hardware and infrastructure, while the IT customer leases the ability to run databases.



Explosion of Data

Data volumes have been growing and will continue to grow, exponentially. As these volumes grow larger, challenges around performance and administration continue to get more complex. Also, more data sources will pop up and require specialized knowledge and expertise.

IT Departments will address data growth in one of two ways:

Add servers and databases. As a result, DBAs will be tasked with monitoring, managing, reporting and maintaining a large number of servers.

Consolidate databases onto shared hardware. Management and maintenance will be easier, but importance of individual servers rises significantly. As a result, DBAs will require a much higher level of visibility.



Explosion of Data DBAs Beware

Regardless of a DBAs decision to address the explosion, they must remember to be mindful of SQL Server sprawl.

DBAs cannot be everywhere to make sure SQL statements are coded properly and that shared SQL Server resources are configured properly. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Look for tools that can provide valuable insights into action and resolution.

Look for tools that can take you to the root of the performance problem.

Proactive solutions will enable you to work smarter, not harder.



Consumerization of IT

If we were to play the blame game, all fingers point to Apple. The consumerization of IT is fueled from products that deliver cool, user-friendly and innovative devices. These devices first emerged in the consumer market and then spread into corporate environments.

From here, two additional issues arise:

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Employees expect the flexibility to access and interact with databases, including SQL Server, through their own devices. DBAs must provide secure access via non-company issued devices.

Application Modernization. Todays apps require greater connectivity to a wide range of services, each of which can affect availability and performance. DBAs will need to monitor the database and end-to-end behavior as apps become more critical.


How Do These Trends Affect DBAs?

Cloud computing, data growth and the consumerization of IT are three of the biggest drives of increased database complexity.

Not surprisingly, these trends align with some of the most common pain points DBAs identify:

Inability to be proactive

Lack of visibility

Performance monitoring issues



Inability to be Proactive

Most days, DBAs feel like they just cant get ahead. They worry about issues arising morning, noon and night and sometimes, even overnight. Without an easily accessible, real-time view of the environment, DBAs find it extremely difficult to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to diagnosing and addressing both real-time and historical performance issues.



Lack of Visibility

Visibility into database activity is even more critical as the number of transactions grows. More often than not, this number grows because:

1. More users attempting to access a specific database from various devices.

2. More mission-critical apps running on top of databases.

3. More data being generated, stored and accessed from databases.



Performance Monitoring Issues

Although SQL Server and other databases include native monitoring tools to provide some insight into database performance, the viewing process is cumbersome and time-consuming.

As a result, DBAs must use multiple native tools, toggling from one solution to the next, which slows down their efforts to find and address issues.


So, whats the answer?

Native database monitoring tools provide baseline activity and performance metrics that provide so much raw data its difficult for DBAs to interpret, pinpoint and address the issue quickly.

With Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise, DBAs can guarantee database performance by:

-Providing in-depth physical, cloud and virtual SQL diagnostics -Pinpointing resource shortages and I/O bottlenecks -Releasing in-depth information on SQL Server clusters, replication, database mirroring and log-shipping activities


The Right Tools

Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise provides you with unmatched SQL Server monitoring, diagnosis and optimization of your database environments to ensure peak performance around the clock.

Dont believe us? Download a free trial here and see for yourself. And while youre at it, why not read through the whitepaper, SQL Server Management Perfected you might learn something you didnt already know!

SQL Server Management Perfected - Ensuring Database Performance in the Face of Today’s IT Trends

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