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Whitepaper Resources
Keeping It Lean and Competitive: Server Virtualization with Hyper-V™ R2
The efficiencies and economies of virtualization promise to change forever how — and how many — servers are used in organizations. Even in midsize organizations. These days, savvy IT managers are making their server environments far more cost-effective by consolidating their growing number of often underutilized physical servers. This is possible because the server operating system resident in each physical machine enables it to host several virtual machines (VMs) that function just like independent servers.
How the Right Infrastructure Delivers Real SQL Database Virtualization Benefit
The amount of digital data stored worldwide stood at 487 billion gigabytes as of May 2009, and data volumes are doubling every 18 months1. Demand to probe that data for information and insight is burgeoning, too. The era of database server business-as-usual has ended...
Dell EqualLogic PS Series and Microsoft WS 2008 Hyper-V
Server virtualization is one of the most significant technology trends in IT environments today, and a key enabler of the next generation virtualized data center. Server virtualization relies on hypervisors to provide the abstraction layer between the operating systems and the physical hardware, allowing IT administrators the ability to consolidate server capacity, increase hardware utilization, and optimize their infrastructure all while improving service levels and network security. With Microsoft® WS 2008 Hyper-V, server virtualization becomes truly pervasive, reaching all segments of the IT market, heightening the need for innovative, cost-effective storage solutions that can simplify SAN deployments and provide enterprise reliability. The Dell EqualLogic™ PS Series can provide a fully virtualized storage infrastructure that delivers high availability, resiliency, flexibility, and scalability that is simple and cost-effective to deploy, manage and grow.
How-to Guide: Consolidating multiple SQL Server systems onto Dell PowerEdge Servers using Microsoft's Hyper-V
This guide provides concepts and procedures that will help you successfully consolidate your Microsoft® SQL Server® instances from multiple machines onto a single Windows Server® 2008 system using Microsoft's Hyper-V™. In this guide, we use the Dell™ PowerEdge™ R900 and PowerEdge™ R905 as target servers. Depending on the version of SQL Server you are using (2000, 2005 or 2008), please refer to the accompanying Guide for the specifics that will help you complete the migration process. This document covers the key overall concepts and procedures you need to setup and configure your virtualized Hyper-V platform.
ServiceU Finds the "Golden Ticket"
Company Achieves Outstanding Power Savings and Performance Improvements with Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 Hyper-V™ and AMD Opteron™ Processor-Based Systems.
Creating, Deploying, and Managing SQL Server Virtual Appliances
TDeploying SQL Server virtual appliances for Microsoft Hyper-V is often perceived as a complex and costly process. In this expert E-Guide, brought to you by SearchSQLServer.com and Dell, you will discover the basic steps essential for effectively managing SQL Server virtual appliances. Learn why SQL Server database mirroring provides efficient protection for today’s virtual databases. Explore how your businesses can effectively create and deploy SQL Server virtual appliances for Hyper-V.
Best Practices for running Microsoft® SQL Server® and Microsoft® Hyper-V on Dell™ PowerEdge™ Servers and Storage
Dell Business Ready Configurations provide technical architecture guidance as a reference to help simplify complex solutions for customers. This white paper provides a reference architecture based on the Dell Business Ready Configurations for Virtualization targeted towards virtualizing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 with Microsoft Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V in an iSCSI environment. The Business Ready Configuration for Virtualization is a configuration solution that provides architectural design to deploy and configure a robust virtualization infrastructure. Utilizing this configuration to build a virtual environment for SQL Server minimizes the design, deployment and configuration phases. We then ran a series of workload tests to validate the configuration and documented the system resource utilization to aid as a reference for sizing exercises. The tests results described in this white paper will highlight some of the new features in Windows Server 2008 R2 and help reveal potential bottlenecks that may arise in a virtualized environment, providing best practice recommendations to mitigate the effects of these bottlenecks, including recommended server and virtual machine configurations as well as workload sizes supported by the server and storage configuration.
Hypervisor management and optimization
All hypervisors essentially do the same job, but not in the same way. The three top hypervisors all have differences that require specific management tactics.
Migrating to a Dell™ PowerEdge™ R515 from two legacy database servers
Small to medium business (SMBs) with legacy database servers, such as older HP ProLiant systems, often find themselves running out of capacity and at a decision point: Do they continue with the status quo, almost guaranteeing increased hardware failures and lost revenue and time, or do they migrate to newer and more powerful servers? With the release of the Dell PowerEdge R515 and the power of Microsoft's Hyper-V™ and SQL Server technologies, the choice is easy for the SMB market: upgrading to the Dell PowerEdge R515 is simple, cost-effective, and results in better performance with more room for growth.
Dell™ PowerEdge™ R515 offers consolidation advantages over two legacy database servers
Small to medium business (SMBs) with legacy database servers, such as older HP ProLiant systems, often find themselves running out of capacity and at a decision point: Do they continue with the status quo, almost guaranteeing increased hardware failures and lost revenue and time, or do they migrate to newer and more powerful servers? With the release of the Dell PowerEdge R515 and the power of Microsoft Windows Server ® 2008 R2 Hyper-V™ and SQL Server 2008 R2 technologies, the choice is easy for the SMB market: upgrading to the Dell PowerEdge R515 is simple, cost-effective, and results in better performance with more room for growth.
Dell™ PowerEdge™ R515 outperformed two legacy database servers
Small to medium business (SMBs) with legacy database servers, such as older HP ProLiant systems, can find themselves running out of server capacity and at a crossroads. Do they continue with the status quo, almost guaranteeing increased hardware failures and lost revenue and time, or do they migrate to newer and more powerful servers with the new four- or six-core AMD Opteron 4100 Series processors? To determine which course of action would yield most benefits, we tested two socket servers and processors.
Dell Webcasts
Top Considerations for Optimizing Hyper-V Performance
Hyper-V is Microsoft's enterprise-class Windows 2008 Server virtualization hypervisor technology. If that seems like quite the mouthful, you're not alone. While Hyper-V is amazingly powerful, especially when it comes to saving money and consolidating Microsoft-based servers, it's also been a challenge for IT managers to understand, optimize, and deploy.
TechRepublic presents Top Considerations for Optimizing Hyper-V Performance, the first of three Hyper-V webcasts that, together, essentially make up a master class in enterprise virtualization using Hyper-V.
- Learn about virtualization basics with a crash course in virtualization;
- Discover what Hyper-V can do for you and how it works;
- Explore the architecture of Hyper-V and the best ways to manage and optimize storage in a Hyper-V environment.
If you run a datacenter based on Microsoft technologies and you aren't already considering Hyper-V as part of your strategic plan, then it's time to get started. Don't miss this TechRepublic Webcast for expert advice and answers to your most pressing questions on Optimizing Hyper-V performance.
Also, don't miss Part II and Part III in this series, where you'll learn about management and performance, scaling, high availability, clustering, new features in Hyper-V, and great performance tips and tricks to get the most out of your Hyper-V installations.
Efficient Hyper-V Management and Performance
Hyper-V is Microsoft's enterprise-class Windows 2008 Server virtualization hypervisor technology. If that seems like quite the mouthful, you're not alone. While Hyper-V is amazingly powerful, especially when it comes to saving money and consolidating Microsoft-based servers, it's also been a challenge for IT managers to understand, optimize, and deploy.
TechRepublic present Efficient Hyper-V Management and Performance, the second of three Hyper-V webcasts that, together, essentially make up a master class in enterprise virtualization using Hyper-V.
- Learn how Hyper-V snapshots can make server development and testing more effective;
- Discover how to recover your virtual machines from Hyper-V snapshots;
- Explore how to get data-consistent backups from your virtual machine servers.
If you run a datacenter based on Microsoft technologies and you aren't already considering Hyper-V as part of your strategic plan, then it's time to get started. Don't miss this TechRepublic Webcast for expert advice and answers to your most pressing questions on Efficient Hyper-V Management and Performance.
Also, don't miss Part I and Part III in this series, where you'll learn about virtualization and Hyper-V basics, Hyper-V's architecture and backing storage mechanisms, along with scaling, high availability, clustering, new features in Hyper-V, and great performance tips and tricks to get the most out of your Hyper-V installations.
Improving Hyper-V Performance and ScalabilityAbstract
Overview: Hyper-V is Microsoft's enterprise-class Windows 2008 Server virtualization hypervisor technology. If that seems like quite the mouthful, you're not alone. While Hyper-V is amazingly powerful, especially when it comes to saving money and consolidating Microsoft-based servers, it's also been a challenge for IT managers to understand, optimize, and deploy.
TechRepublic presents Improving Hyper-V Performance and Scalability, the final of three Hyper-V webcasts that, together, essentially make up a master class in enterprise virtualization using Hyper-V.
- Learn how to scale your enterprise VM environment and how to cluster VM servers;
- Discover how to ensure high-availability and the appropriate storage options to handle enterprise-class datacenter scaling;
- Explore new features in Hyper-V, and great performance tips and tricks to get the most out of your Hyper-V installations.
If you run a datacenter based on Microsoft technologies and you aren't already considering Hyper-V as part of your strategic plan, then it's time to get started. Don't miss this TechRepublic Webcast for expert advice and answers to your most pressing questions on Improving Hyper-V Performance and Scalability.
Also, don't miss Part I and Part II in this series, where you'll learn about virtualization and Hyper-V basics, Hyper-V's architecture and backing storage mechanisms, along with how snapshots can make server development and testing more effective and how to get data-consistent backups from your virtual machine servers.
Additional Whitepapers
Dell™ PowerEdge™ R515 offers savings over two legacy database servers
The Dell PowerEdge R515 server can quickly recapture initial investment costs and deliver savings for small to medium businesses (SMBs) replacing multiple legacy servers. We compared two legacy HP servers, one with an external storage array, each running one workload, to the Dell PowerEdge R515 with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 running both workloads in Windows Server® 2008 R2 Hyper-V™ virtual machines (VMs). Out total cost of ownerships (TCO) analysis shows that the new Dell PowerEdge 515, featuring a large internal storage capacity and AMD Operton™ 4100 Series processors, can provide up to a 28.0 percent 3-year TCO advantage over continued operation of two legacy HP servers running older AMD processors and older versions of SQL Server, and can deliver a return on investment (ROI) payback in 19 months.
Professional Accounting Solutions Cuts Power Consumption by 50% and Enjoys Four-Fold Faster Backups
Professional Accounting Solutions needed to reduce power consumption to benefit from a price reduction in a co-location facility and consolidate its 40 servers and 2 SANs to minimize its hardware footprint. The company virtualized its servers using Dell PowerEdge servers and Microsoft Hyper-V software and consolidated two SANs onto a Dell/EMC SAN using iSCSI connectivity for lower total cost of ownership with twice the speed and capacity of its previous solution.
A Performance Comparison of AMD Opteron™ Processors with Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server 2008 R2
Virtualization is becoming almost a necessity due in part to economic reasons but also in order to take full advantage of the sheer processing power offered by today's technology. This eventually leads to the question "how far will my servers scale in a virtual environment"? To demonstrate the relative scaling capabilities of Dell™ PowerEdge™Servers with AMD Opteron™ processors running Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server 2008 R2, Dell conducted a proof of concept to compare several server configurations. The Open Source DVD Store benchmark was used throughout with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, running in virtual machines on the Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 host system. Dell compared the performance difference of the Six-Core AMD Opteron models -- the 8435 and 2435 - with the 2384 Quad-Core, and 2222 Dual-Core in the Dell PowerEdge M905 and M605 blade servers. The tests proved that Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 was able to continue to support more virtual machines as additional processor cores and memory were available to the server. Although the number of virtual machines each processor or system is able to support will vary with the actual workload, the relative performance comparisons presented in this paper can be used to help determine which system and processor configuration might best fit a particular need.
