The Agenda

This session will be a two part session in which we will be focusing on two of the biggest topics in the DBA field. 

How to properly design your SAN storage solution and

How to properly design your virtualization solution.

The storage portion of this session will focus on SAN storage, but most of the material will apply to direct attached storage as well. In the first half of the session we'll be focusing on the storage array.  Storage can be one of the biggest bottlenecks when it comes to database performance.  It’s also one of the hardest places to troubleshoot performance issues because storage engineers and database administrators often do not speak the same language.  In this session, we’ll be looking at storage from both the database and storage perspectives.   We’ll be digging into LUNs, HBAs, the fabric, as well as the storage configuration. After going over the components we'll dig into some advanced storage configurations.  This includes RAID groups, multi-pathing software, and proper redundant storage network design.  We will also be digging into some advanced storage array backup techniques including taking storage level clones and snapshots.  After going over these advanced techniques we will dig into how these can best be used to backup the SQL Server environment to provide maximum redundancy with no recurring tape costs. In addition to theory, we’ll be looking at an actual SAN so that we can translate what we see in the Storage Array with what we see on the actual server.

In the second half of the day we'll be looking into the pros and cons of moving SQL Servers into a virtual server environment.  Specifically we’ll be looking into when it’s a good idea and when it’s probably not a good idea.  Like everything in the database world there are no hard set answers as to if virtualization is a good idea or not, but there are some times when virtualizing a SQL Server is a good idea, and can save you some money.  There are some other times when you will be shooting yourself in the foot and virtualization isn't a good idea.  We’ll be focusing on when how to make this decision, and how to gather the metrics that you need in order to come to this decision. We'll look into how tie the virtual platforms to the storage array so that you can maximize the storage performance for your SQL Servers and the virtual environment.