Server virtualisation is an efficient way to save on server hardware
costs, real estate, and management resources, but it isn’t the
only way. Just ask the folks at Avanade, a systems integrator
specialising in Microsoft solutions. For one government customer,
Avanade had originally designed hundreds of SQL Servers in highly
available MSCS (Microsoft Cluster Server) clusters, but the system was
spiralling out of control.
“We had roughly 50 percent of the SQL Server nodes acting in a
passive capacity,” says David K. Miller, Avanade’s director
of technology and infrastructure in the U.K. “This was a
potentially huge expenditure in server hardware, rack space, network
and storage infrastructure. And we still had to monitor and patch them
all.”
To reduce both its hardware and database software costs, Avanade
turned to PolyServe Database Utility for SQL Server, which is based on
the company’s Matrix Server virtualisation technology. As opposed
to traditional server virtualisation, PolyServe uses a symmetrical
cluster file system to allow all servers in a cluster to see all the
data within the Windows file system, creating a single, virtualised
storage and server pool. Previously, some instances of SQL Server might
have used only 10 percent of their available storage, whereas others
were bursting at the seams and would need to be taken offline to expand
their storage. Sharing the storage pool improves overall storage
utilisation, while still giving the performance benefits of dedicated
servers.
PolyServe also gave Miller more hardware flexibility. “Unlike
with MSCS, all the nodes in the cluster don’t have to be
identical, so we had the option to mix two-way, four-way, and eight-way
servers in the same cluster,” he says. “This would allow us
to move an instance of a SQL Server from a two-node to an eight-node
server for heavy overnight batch processing, while moving the off-peak
online traffic from the eight-way to a four-way or two-way server at
the same time, then moving them back the next morning.”
PolyServe’s “dynamic rehosting” feature can move
SQL Server instances from server to server in seconds. It also allows
every server in a cluster of as many as 16 nodes, active or passive, to
act as a fail-over target for every other server. Compared with MSCS,
which limits a cluster to eight nodes, Miller estimates that
PolyServe’s approach has reduced the number of passive nodes by
80 percent across the enterprise.
“Server virtualisation was not the answer for us, as the
processing requirements of our SQL Server deployments really required
us to put them on their own physical platforms,” Miller says.
“PolyServe’s product allowed us to reduce the number of
physical servers by reducing the number of passive nodes.”
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