How to Double VM Density with ioTurbine

May 23, 2013

Slow disk I/O limits virtual machine (VM) density in servers, and that restricts customers from realizing one of the greatest benefits of virtualization: consolidation. When disk I/O is too slow, you have to use more server hardware and buy more software licenses for virtualization to perform well enough.

ioTurbine is an innovative caching software approach that allows users to double the number of VMs on industry standard servers and virtualize mission critical applications, while integrating seamlessly into existing SAN or NAS storage.

Watch this video to see the benefits of ioTurbine in action.

A new white paper illustrates these benefits, comparing the performance of virtual machines running off a storage array to performance of virtual machines using ioTurbine caching software on ioMemory.

A single virtual machine’s performance on ioMemory is five times that of a VM on disk. This makes ioTurbine an ideal solution for virtualizing I/O-intensive applications like Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle databases, while supporting VM mobility features such as vMotion and HA. See Virtualizing Critical Applications with ioTurbine.

As more VMs are added, the ioTurbine performance scales, enabling 20 high-performance VMs to run on a server that could support just 10 VMs without caching.

Users looking to increase VM density—either by virtualizing performance-sensitive applications currently running on bare metal or by increasing the number of VMs on servers— should consider ioTurbine intelligent caching with ioMemory.


Hello, Hekaton! Microsoft Plans In-Memory OLTP SQL Server

November 28, 2012

In a keynote at SQL PASS Summit, Microsoft announced it is bringing In-Memory online transaction processing (OLTP) to the next major release of SQL Server, code named Hekaton. Twitter lit up with chatter about it, and at our booth at PASS, Hekaton was the topic du jour.

Our quick take on Hekaton is that even in-memory databases have transaction logs that are on persistent storage. By utilizing ioMemory as the persistent storage for transaction logs, we accelerate transaction processing, as the logs are being written to constantly. It’s faster to recover an in-memory database as well, because the transaction logs have to be read quickly to recover a database fast. Finally, the backup speed of in-memory databases gets faster if the backups reside on ioMemory.

Hekaton is all about efficiency and performance, the same ideals that drive innovation at Fusion-io. We think Hekaton sounds promising. Here’s to database acceleration!

Here are a few tidbits about Hekaton from around the web:

Hekaton is the Greek word for 100 times, and Microsoft says that’s the design goal for the peak performance improvements it’s expecting.” Doug Henschen, Informationweek

Hekaton is currently in private technology preview with a small set of customers, which company officials are planning to expand to 100 before the end of this calendar year.” Mary Jo Foley, ZDNet

The next version of SQL Server will feature the ability to host database tables or even entire databases within a server’s working memory.” Joab Jackson, Computerworld

Data has emerged as the new currency of business.” Ted Kummert, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Business Platform Division, The Official Microsoft Blog

In a recent article in FX-MM, Steven Graves, CEO of McObject, reports on his experience with ioMemory and in-memory databases. Check out “Databases: Have your in-memory performance, and recoverability too.”

 


1.9M row insertions​/sec — HP IO Accelerato​rs, HP ProLiant Gen8 servers & Microsoft SQL Server 2012

June 7, 2012

In terms of passenger throughput, Shinjuku Station in Japan is considered the world’s busiest train station. Connecting rail traffic between central Tokyo and its western suburbs, Shinjuku recorded an average 3.64 million passengers per day in 2007. Now imagine upping that to 10 million per day without adding any new trains and the associated cost. That’s sort of what it’s like to reach 1.9 million row insertions per second in a database table using the new HP ioDrive2 IO Accelerators configured within HP ProLiant Gen8 servers.

If you work with databases, you know that 1.9 million row insertions per second is much more than a lot. We knew that the new generation of HP IO Accelerators, released on May 14th together with the next wave of HP ProLiant Gen8 servers, would provide our customers with a tremendous application performance boost. And recent testing in a Microsoft SQL Server 2012 environment made us virtually giddy.

HP IO Accelerators place data close to the server CPU, dramatically improving application performance by bypassing traditional storage controllers and unlocking trapped compute cycles. Based on ioMemory technology from Fusion-io, they operate as a new storage memory tier within the server.  These devices install on the PCIe bus within your rack, tower, or blade server to help eliminate I/O bottlenecks, performance limitations, latency problems, and database blocking.  For database applications such as Microsoft SQL 2012, you can accomplish this by (1) hosting the entire database in the server (and mirror with a second server if you need high availability), or by (2) using HP IO Accelerators as a high performance read cache for frequently accessed files (such as log files), with the balance of the dataset hosted by external storage.

Three Microsoft SQL Server 2012 database transaction log stress tests were conducted over the past seven months with the 2nd generation HP IO Accelerators. Earlier this month, we created a Microsoft SQL Server environment using a single HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server configured with two of the new 1.2 TB HP ioDrive2 IO Accelerators. Comparing this testing  with results from the same test operations performed with two other configurations, tested in November 2011 and March 2012, we saw a huge lift in performance.  The November test used four ioDrive2 devices with a single 4-socket server.  The March test was conducted live at SQLBits in London using three ioDrive2 devices with a single HP DL380 G7 server. This test was structured in particular to maximize use of the transaction log, and what we found was stunning:  The environment with the HP DL380p Gen8 server and two HP ioDrive2 IO Accelerators easily sustained over 900 MB/s of log file access – 72% higher performance than the November 2011 tests and 20% more than the March 2012 tests.  And this environment provided 1.9 million row insertions per second – representing 50% more bandwidth than the November 2011 tests and 20% more than the March 2012 tests.  And, this was accomplished by using only two HP ioDrive2 IO Accelerators within a single HP DL380p Gen8 server.  Better performance with fewer cards – that’s a crowd pleaser!

Dynamic workload acceleration is a huge part of the Gen8 story. By pairing HP IO Accelerators with HP ProLiant Gen8 servers and HP Insight Control management software, you have an ideal platform for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 – as well as other databases – to accelerate performance, improve response times, and boost efficiency.

For more information please contact www.c24.co.uk

 


Why Microsoft Dynamics?

May 23, 2012

Image representing Microsoft as depicted in Cr...

Image via CrunchBase

Microsoft Dynamics™ is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like and with familiar Microsoft software, automating and streamlining financial , customer relationship and supply chain processes in a way that helps you drive business success.

Business Management Solutions

Familiar to Your People:

What if business management technology could free up you and your employees to focus on what’s truly important? What if technology reflected the ways in which people throughout your company actually work? Microsoft Dynamics is the answer to those questions. Microsoft Dynamics works like other Microsoft products you and your people are familiar with, helping reduce the time required to learn how to use it, and freeing up time to focus on what matters most. Designed with a focus on the roles people play throughout your company, Microsoft Dynamics delivers an individualized, task-based user experience and allows your employees to easily customize and automate based on their own preferences and work style. That means less training and development time and a quicker return on your investment.

Fits with Your Systems:

When a business management solution works the way your current technology works, it fi ts easily and seamlessly into your existing systems and helps you maximize your technology investment. Microsoft Dynamics works the way your current technology works so it fi ts easily into your systems, helping to maximize your investment in Microsoft technology. This in turn allows your employees to use a powerful business management solution within a familiar environment. Take advantage of BizTalk tools for data mapping, partner configuration and improved security. Or, integrate with other Microsoft product innovations, including Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Windows. Microsoft Dynamics – built to work with and maximize the potential of other Microsoft technologies.

Fuels Your Business Productivity:

Microsoft Dynamics helps fuel your productivity by automating your business-critical operations and adapting to fi t into your type of business helping ensure the most relevant insight. How? With a user experience modeled around tasks and roles and integrated with familiar productivity tools like Microsoft Office. With integration between Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft SharePoint Technologies Collaboration is fostered among your employees, vendors and customers. And, by integrating financial, customer relationship and supply chain processes to help maximize both internal and external efficiencies, costs are reduced and performance improved.

Enables Confident Decision-Making:

The business landscape in which you thrive is demanding. You need to be able to respond and have the confidence to make informed decisions that have an impact. Microsoft Dynamics helps you respond rapidly to the changing demands of your business, providing you with more complete insight across your organization so you and your people can make timely and informed decisions with increased confidence. With Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office Excel Analysis tools and Microsoft Dynamics together, you gain to critical data. That data can be easily analyzed and your employees get the information they want out of the system in the way they want and need, using a tool that is already familiar to them

Posted by AIB Consultants

For information about C24 and our professional Microsoft Dynamics Hosting solutions please visit our website


Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 752 other followers