Luis Vargas | Senior Program Manager Darmadi Komo | Senior Product Marketing Manager

Meet Luis Vargas | @lvargas

Senior Program Manager in SQL Server
SQL Server IaaS / hybrid scenarios AlwaysOn (High Availability)

Over 10 years of industry experience

Microsoft: PM Financial Services: Dev

PhD in Database Systems

Cambridge University

Windows Azure VMs Overview

Windows Azure VMs

Overview
VMs hosted on Windows Azure infrastructure (IaaS)
From Microsoft images or your own images (VHDs) Fast provisioning (10 minutes)

Pay per use

VM: By minute
Cost depends on size and licensing (e.g. SQL)

Network: only incoming (not outgoing) Storage: only used (not allocated)

Elasticity
1 core / 2GB RAM / 1TB 8 cores / 56GB RAM / 16TB

You manage the VM

Security, patching, monitoring, etc

Windows Azure VMs

Storage
Every VM disk is a BLOB in Azure Storage
3 sync local copies
No data loss highly available (transparent to VM)

3 more async remote copies (if geo-replication enabled)

For disaster recovery (manually managed by Microsoft)

Windows Azure VMs

General approach for high availability

SQL Server on Windows Azure VMs

HA & DR support
HA
SLA: No data loss If VM becomes unavailable, restart in another host SLA: 1 of 2 VMs in Availability Set: 99.95% (<22 min downtime p/month) Includes Planned downtime due to (monthly) host OS servicing Unplanned downtime due to physical failures Doesnt include servicing of guest OS DR

<30 min (No SLA) Azure Ops recovers VM (No SLA)

Windows Azure VMs

External Connectivity
Over the Internet
Public endpoints

Over a site-to-site tunnel Extend on-premise network to Azure Can join Azure VMs to on-premise domain Secure tunnel VPN Device / Windows Server RRAS

SQL Server on Windows Azure VMs

Many SQL versions supported SQL 2014 CTP1, SQL 2012 SP1, SQL 2008 R2

(Almost) 100% compatibility No SQL Failover Clusters (yet..)

You manage SQL Server Security, Backups, HA, DR, etc

SQL Server HA/DR Scenarios with Windows Azure VMs

SQL Server HA/DR Scenarios

HA within Azure Availability of SQL Server in Azure VM Protect from issues impacting SQL Server or VM Use another SQL Server VM in same Azure DC
DR between On-Premise and Azure
Availability of on-premise SQL Server (physical or virtual) Protect from issues impacting on-premise data center Use a SQL Server VM in Azure

SQL Server HA within Windows Azure

Why?
Azures failure detection for VM (not SQL Server)
SQL Server service could be down or hung Servicing of guest OS causes downtime Servicing of SQL Server causes downtime

Azures service healing involves restarting VM in different host

~12 min downtime each time

Azures upgrade involves servicing host OS and restarting VM in the host

~15 min downtime each time

What to do?

Configure a SQL Server HA technology

Witness

Failure detection for SQL Server Failover takes ~15s

VM

P S

S P

VM

VM

What to do?
Technology

Supported SQL Server HA technologies

SQL Server Version SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2014 SQL Server 2008 R2 SQL Server 2012

Zero Data Loss Yes (Sync Mode)

Scope

# Replicas

Automati c Failover Yes (w/ additional cluster member) Yes (w/ Witness)

Readable Secondaries Yes

Availability Groups

DB(s)

Database Mirroring

Yes (High Safety Mode)

DB

Limited (database snapshots)

Availability Groups
Provide many other capabilities:
Flexible Failover Policy Automatic Page Repair Backups on Secondaries Improved Manageability FileStream & FileTable support

But remember they need:

Windows Cluster No shared storage Same Windows Domain Needs an Active Directory Domain Controller

Before starting any configuration..

Ensure the VMs are hosted appropriately

Same Affinity Group

Same Azure cluster Reduces log synchronization latency

Same Availability Set

Different Fault Domain (rack) and Upgrade Domain Ensures that a rack failure or Azures upgrade impacts at most one replica

Same VNet
Ensures that VM IPs dont change after Azures service healing (avoids DNS update time: ~12 min) Requirement for Active Directory

A sample configuration

SQL Server DR between On-Premise and Windows Azure

Why?

An event can cause on-prem SQL Server to become unavailable

Temporarily (e.g. gateway failure) Permanently (e.g. flooding)

A disaster recovery site is expensive

Site rent + maintenance Hardware Ops

What to do?

Configure a SQL Server DR technology

What to do?

Configure a SQL Server DR technology

Deploy one or more secondary replicas for on-premise SQL Server
Replicas continuously synchronize Replica (Azure) storage guarantees no data loss

At best region
West US, East US, East Asia, Southeast Asia, North Europe, West Europe Latency / political considerations

Low TCO
VM and storage Free incoming traffic

Deployments may be inverted

Sometimes people want to keep a replica on-premise

What to do?
Technology Availability Groups

Supported SQL Server DR technologies

SQL Server Version SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2014 Zero Data Loss No (Async Mode) Scope DB(s) # Secondaries 4 Automatic Failover No Readable Secondaries Yes

Database Mirroring

SQL Server 2008 R2 SQL Server 2012

No (High Performance Mode) No

DB

No

Limited (database snapshots)

Log Shipping

SQL Server 2008 R2 SQL Server 2012

DB

No

Limited (standby state)

Async Mode (High Performance) avoids impacting primary performance Async Mode only supports Force Failover to make potential data loss a conscious decision

Availability Groups

Provide additional benefits:

Integrated HA/DR Offload Read workloads to Azure
Connect reporting/BI apps Migrate apps and run against local secondaries

Offload Backups to Azure

A solution for policy compliance

Remember it requires:
Same Windows Cluster Same Windows Domain

What to do?

Configure site-to-site tunnel

Using VPN device or Windows Server RAS

Join VM to the Domain

Add VM SQL Server as replica of Availability Group

Sample Deployment

In SQL 14 CTP2..

Availability Groups
Add Azure Replica Wizard

Many customers cant afford a DR site

Site rent + maintenance, hardware, Ops

SQL Server 2012: Started supporting replicas on Windows Azure VMs this year

Offload read workloads Offload backups (policy compliance) Disaster recovery

At best region

West US, East US, East Asia, Southeast Asia, North Europe, West Europe Latency / political considerations

Availability Groups
Add Azure Replica Wizard

Sync Log Synchronization

Async Log Synchronization

Availability Groups
Add Azure Replica Wizard

Low TCO

VM and storage
Free ingress traffic

SQL Server 2014: Add Replica Wizard supports Windows Azure

E2E: From provisioning VM to starting log synchronization Validates environment Handles failures

Resources
SQL Server HA/DR on IaaS Tutorials and scripts http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj870962.aspx IaaS Create Virtual Network in Azure https://www.windowsazure.com/enus/manage/services/networking/create-a-virtual-network/ Create Virtual Network from on-premise to Azure https://www.windowsazure.com/enus/manage/services/networking/cross-premises-connectivity/ Set up Active Directory Domain Controller http://www.windowsazure.com/enus/manage/services/networking/active-directory-forest/

Luis.Vargas@Microsoft.com