Consolidation on Flash- Hardware for Nothing, Get Your Flash for Free (I want my SSDs!)

Copyright © 2015 SanDisk. All rights reserved. 1
c
Consolidation on Flash:
Hardware for Nothing,
Get Your Flash for Free
I want my SSDs…
Jimmy May, MCM
SQL Server Solutions Architect
jimmy.may@sandisk.com
@aspiringgeek

Forward-Looking Statements
During our meeting today we will make forward-looking statements.
Any statement that refers to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or
circumstances is a forward-looking statement, including those relating to products and their anticipated
availability, capacities, pricing, capabilities, performance and compatibility, and benefits to customers.
Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements due to a number
of risks and uncertainties, including the factors detailed under the caption “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in the
documents we file from time to time with the SEC, including our annual and quarterly reports.
We undertake no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date
hereof.

Jimmy May, MCM
• SanDisk SQL Server Solutions Architect
Formerly:
• Sr. Program Manager, SQL CAT
• SQL Server Customer Advisory Team
• MSIT Principal Architect: Database
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server (2009)
MS IT Gold Star Recipient (2008)
Microsoft Oracle Center of Excellence (2008)
SQL Server MVP Nominee (2006)
Indiana Windows User Group www.iwug.net
• Founder & Board of Directors
Indianapolis Professional Association for SQL Server www.indypass.org
• Founder & Member of Executive Committee
SQL Server Pros: Founder & Visionary-in-Chief
SQL Innovator Award Recipient (2006)
• Contest sponsored in part by Microsoft
Formerly Chief Database Architect for high-throughput OLTP VLDB at
ExactTarget (recent IPO)
Senior Database Administrator for OpenGlobe/Escient
www.twitter.com/aspiringgeek jimmy.may@sandisk.com jimmymay@outlook.com
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jimmy_may
Bio

Copyright © 2015 SanDisk. All rights reserved. 4Data Propulsion Laboratory — DPL
C:>sqlservr.exe /faster

Transforming Data Center Economics
SanDisk Flash isn’t transformative merely because
of performance
— The economics are disruptive
SQL Server Licensing/Hardware scenarios
Hardware for Nothing, Get Your Flash for Free

Consolidation on Flash
SQL Server Licensing is now core-based
• Licensing costs are many times more the cost of hardware—far exceeding
• Underutilized CPUs aren’t doing nothing—they’re burning dollars
I/O is the perf bottleneck in most SQL Server environments
• Typically, consolidation on flash moves the bottleneck from the storage layer to the CPU—
where it belongs
This presentation documents lab work & real-life case studies in which:
• These results are not exceptional; indeed, they are routine outcomes
• Consolidating on flash has saved customers hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars
• ...& provided superior performance

SQL 2005 EoS—this month!
www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/sql-server-2005
http://bit.ly/1PI8GRN
Licensing is complex—and expensive
3x performance on flash vs. spinning media
Consolidation on flash:
Hardware for Nothing, Flash for Free
http://bit.ly/1RChgDK
Consolidation

I/O Blender Effect
Imagine SQL Server log files or data warehouse
workloads with sequential reads
Now run several of these in VMs on a host
At the hypervisor and storage level:
• The I/O from those VMs gets mixed up – like it was run through a blender
• It looks like random I/O, not like the sequential I/O it started as
Storage performance vs. I/O blender limits workload
density

SQL Server Common I/O Sizes: I/O Blender Demo

SQL Server Licensing Labyrinth

Licensing Variables
• Cores & Sockets
• SQL Server Edition
• Virtualized vs. Bare Metal
• Host vs. Guest
• Software Assurance (SA) or not
• Active or Passive
• Legacy Licensing
• Is your sales rep under quota & is it near end-of-quarter or better yet near
end-of-fiscal year?
• Which highly-trained professional sales rep you talk to
• Ask 2, get 3 opinions

What if I told you...
...the only good I/O is the one
for which you do not ask?

The best I/O is the one you don’t have to do.
—Gene Amdahl
Author of Amdahl's Law

Caching Algorithms:
Your Experience May Vary...

SQL Workload Consolidation: Do More—Reliably and Consistently
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
VM Count
Flash
Txns (x1000)
Spindles
Txns (x1000)
FlashSoft Caching
Txns (x1000)

SQL Workload Consolidation: Save More
Assume consolidating 21 workloads (same as we tested)
If one host can support all 21 workloads,
• Repurpose/retire two hosts, or don’t buy them in the first place.
• You don’t need SQL Server licenses for those two hosts.
Do the math:
• Each host: 2-sockets, 14 cores/CPU = 28 cores (same as what we tested)
• $6,874/core for SQL 2014 EE (full price, no discounts, no SA)
• 28 * $6,874 = $192,472 per host (for SQL EE licenses)
• ~$400,000 savings by eliminating the need to license 2 hosts
Better performance (free lunch!)

Why Is This Good?
Saving $400k is obviously good for your organization.
Your org/team/customers are looking for the best
solution.
• You win raving fans.
Redirect budgeted savings to:
• Higher-margin products and services
• Additional projects and equipment (such as more SanDisk flash products)
Be the hero – Help yourself and your company,
customers, & users invest their savings

Data Center Economics
SanDisk Flash isn’t transformative merely because
of performance
— The economics are disruptive
SQL Server Licensing/Hardware scenarios
— Tier 1
— Tier 2

AlwaysOn AGs Readable Secondaries
3 Sustained Simultaneous Workstreams Scenario
⁻ 2 HP DL580 4-socket servers, 64 logical cores per server
⁻ Highly transactional TPCC-like environment – 1,000,000 New Orders per Minute
⁻ 4 AlwaysOn Ags in synchronous availability mode, no queuing
⁻ Database backups at 4GB/s
⁻ I/O Latency: < 0.0ms, i.e., µs range
Recommended Configuration
⁻ Readable Secondary used for backup stream
⁻ This requires licensing all cores on both servers
Configuration on SanDisk Fusion ioMemory Flash
⁻ Backup offloaded from Secondary, so the Read-Only bit can be turned off
⁻ This requires only one server to be licensed
SQL Server License Savings:
⁻ 32 EE licenses (64 cores)
• @$13,473.00 USD = $ 431,136 (non-SA)
• @$20,209.00 USD = $ 646,688 (SA)