CONFIGURE SCCM / SQL FOR OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE

Benjamin Reynoldsblogs.technet.microsoft.com/benjamin/Microsoft

Steve Thompsonwww.stevethompsonmvp.wordpress.comSenior ConsultantSoftchoice

@Steve_TSQL

SQL / EMS MVP

Many moons

Blues & BBQ

?

SQL, SSRS, SCCM

15 years

Sunriver & Indian

Steve ThompsonBenjamin Reynolds

AGENDA Configure Windows Server

Best practices

Configure SQL Server Best practices

Optimization and Tuning techniques Syscommittab Backup for performance

CONFIGURE WINDOWS SERVER

CONFIGURE WINDOWS SERVERKey Topics Provision Server Recommended Platform Memory CPU Disk Best Practices

Use Windows Server 2016 Memory CPU Disk

64KB NTFS format IOPS Drive layout

Considerations for Azure VMs See HA session

Best Practices – capacity planninghttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/plan-design/configs/recommended-hardware

WINDOWS SERVER - PROVISION SERVER

CONFIGURE SQL SERVER

CONFIGURE SQL SERVER Installation location Disk Layout Memory CPU Databases

SCCM TempDB SUSDB

DB Sizing, Autogrowth & VLF’s Patching – SP & CU updates

Cautionary notes… Best Practices / Lessons from the field!

SQL INSTALLATION LOCATION Collocate with SCCM?

When possible, install SQL Server on same server as SCCM

Remote install of SQL Server Exceptions: HA scenarios

Install location Never C:

Disk Layout Plan to separate Data from Logs, TempDB on dedicated drive

DISK LAYOUT Plan to separate Data from Logs, Place TempDB on dedicated drive

Include TempDB data and logs on same drive – SSD if possible

Logical Drive Minimum Size(GB)

Purpose

C: 100 OS + *Page file

E: 100 Applications + Database

F: 50 Log Files

G: 500 SCCM Content OS images, app packages, etc.

*P: 50 Page File

*T: 50 Temp DB

*U: 50 Backups

If SQL co‐located with SCCM sample drive layout:

DISK LAYOUT - WHAT MSIT DOES

SQL MEMORY CONFIGURATIONSQL Server loves memory. Maybe too much.Always, always set a minimum and maximum memoryRecommended Settings:

Minimum SQL memory = 8GB Maximum SQL memory

SCCM and SQL on same server: example 96GB total – 16GB = 80 GB for SQL SQL on Remote server: memory setting should be about 80% of server memory

Always calculate memory to whole GB Example: 8GB * 1024 = 8192MB

SQL MEMORY CONFIGURATION Default (Screen shot) & modified

Remember - Monitor memory usage and adjust as needed. Page file usage = BAD

CPUMAXDOP - MAX Degree Of Parallelism (MAXDOP)

By default, MAXDOP is set to 0. This means that all available processors are available to be deployed to process statements. That is good, right? Not necessarily. It depends.

To suppress parallel plan generation, set max degree of parallelism to 1 Large sites may benefit Very large site: SCCM Admin feedback: “With a CAS, MAXDOP with a higher value makes

collection queries faster, lower setting makes inbox processing faster, not a lot of room for compromise. We use 2.”

Advice: Experiment and monitor

DATABASES Estimate size(s)

SCCM SUSDB TempDBUse SCCM DB Sizing estimator!

Multiple data files may be appropriate Can migrate using Filegroups Be cautious in a multi-site hierarchy!

Single LOG file Autogrowth = BAD

TEMPDB

TempDB data files should be equally sized Total TempDB should approximate 25-30% of the SCCM total size. Place TempDB on a dedicated drive, with log file Create 4 (or more) equally sized data files. This helps you avoid the

GAM/SGAM/PFS page contention issues described in Microsoft KB 2154845. Turn off auto-growth Create no more than 8 data files

DB FILE AUTOGROWTH

AUTOGROWTH IS TYPICALLY BAD Autogrowth recommendations:

Use proper sizing estimates for sufficient free space

Monitor DB free space

SET Autogrowth to either 512 or 1024MB

NEVER, EVER USE % GROWTH!

Incorrect settings can cause VLFs

VLF – VIRTUAL LOG FILES Can have a negative effect on database performance Too many VLFs will slow down the startup, shutdown and read/write

performance of any database. VLFs are created when a transaction log file is allowed to auto-grow. Size transaction log file appropriately! Depending on size of database/transaction log file, less than several hundred Correct a high VLF count by:

SINGLE USER MODEDBCC SHRINKFILEMODIFY FILE

VLF – VIRTUAL LOG FILES MS IT – recent foray into VLFs

SERVICE ACCOUNTS & INSTANT INITIALIZATION Service Account versus System Account Ensure the service account is added to “Perform volume maintenance tasks” Ensure the service account is added to “Lock Pages in Memory”

DO WE WANT TO KEEP THIS AND TALK ABOUT THIS AT ALL?

PATCHINGPatching – SP & CU updates Apply services packs and Cumulative updates on a regular basis Contain bug fixes, security vulnerabilities and performance fixesCautionary notes… SQL Server 2016 and SSMS have shared components Best practice, do not install SSMS on server, install on a separate workstation

SQL Server review demo

OPTIMIZATION AND TUNING

OPTIMIZATION AND TUNING Indexes and Statistics – oh my! Ola Hallengren solution

How to properly implement

Proper SQL Agent task settings Considerations

MS IT – lessons from the field

INDEX & STATISTICS MAINTENANCE What is an index?

A “small pointer table” to help speed up data lookups Scans vs Seeks

Why maintain indexes? They get fragmented and need to be “defragged” A highly fragmented index will impact performance

Overall data processing on the site Replication processing Querying/Reporting

What is a statistic? Information about the distribution of values in a table or index Used by the optimizer to determine an execution plan

Why maintain statistics? It impacts performance!

INDEX & STATISTICS MAINTENANCE ConfigMgr “Rebuild Indexes” Maintenance Task

Reorganize indexes with 10%-30% fragmentation Rebuild indexes when fragmentation is greater than 30% Enterprise Edition of SQL Server allows for an online rebuild operation Disabled by default! There is no “Statistics Maintenance Task”!

Custom Index & Statistics Maintenance Define different fragmentation levels, time limits, or schedules Define separate statistic update schedules

DO IT! Index & Statistics maintenance is absolutely necessary! Indexes weekly; Statistics daily

INDEX & STATISTICS MAINTENANCE Reorganize vs Rebuild Using Ola Hallengren’s index maintenance solution

Download & Install IndexOptimize.sql, CommandExecute.sql, and CommandLog.sql (from https://ola.hallengren.com/downloads.html)

Create a SQL Agent Job (or jobs) which executes IndexOptimize and set a schedule

Recommendations? Log to a table and review to determine if changes are necessary!

WHAT WE DO Index weekly Statistics daily Log to the table! Skip “DrsConflictInfo”, “HinvChangeLog”, and “CI_CurrentComplianceStatusDetails What’s next…

INDEX INVESTIGATIONS

Implement Tuning Solution

BACKUP

BACKUP – SCCM AND SQL Maintenance Plans Custom Plans Considerations Performance

SCCM BACKUPS Saves a copy of the mdf and ldf files

No compression

Saves configuration information Information to pre-populate recovery values

Only backs up the CM database

CUSTOM BACKUP PLANS SQL backups supported by SCCM Smaller backup sizes possible – compression! Greater control over the backups taken/created All databases backed up Does not backup configuration information

During recovery those values must be typed in – server/sitecode/etc

Backup additional items Backup the Cd.latest folder after each build

https://stevethompsonmvp.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/sccm-file-backup-considerations/

CONSIDERATIONS/PERFORMANCE Striping SQL backups Number of backups to keep Max Transfer Size LOG BACKUPS! (for Availability Groups) Backup ALL databases! Test backups often! (You don’t have a backup until you’ve restored it!) Backup cd.latest!

WHAT WE DO AT MSITCM DB striped backup – 16 filesNightly Full backupsLog backups every 2 hours (if in FULL recovery mode)Keep the last 2 Full backups (and any log backups after)Max Transfer Size of 262144 for SAN connected drives (and Azure)Separate DPM jobs for offsite and longer term storageRestore CAS backup daily!

Backup Demo

SYSCOMMITTAB

SYSCOMMITTAB Internal tables used with Change Tracking

“Sys.change_tracking_[ID]”

Sys.syscommittab Requires a DAC connection to view

DMV = Sys.dm_tran_commit_table

Records the changes to these tables DRS picks up the changes for replication

Old records cleaned up by a ‘ghost cleanup process’ The “magical tipping point”

SYSCOMMITTAB Make sure you don’t have a huge “backlog” of records on the CT tables! SQL 2014+ stored procedure: sp_flush_commit_table_on_demand ConfigMgr added two stored procedures for taking care of “syscommittab”

spDiagChangeTracking – used to check or cleanup (@CleanupChangeTracking variable)

spCleanupChangeTracking – does not require DAC but SQL 2014+

Custom solution Used as the core of the CM sprocs

Issues creating an Agent job due to DAC requirements

Write the info to a table!

THE “DBA” SOLUTION

THE “DBA” SOLUTION A separate database named “DBA” Logging and statistics gathering Custom objects (stored procedures, functions, views, etc) stored here Iterations in source control

A look at the DBA Solution

REFERENCESOla and SCCMhttps://stevethompsonmvp.wordpress.com/2016/11/29/optimizing-sccm-databases-revisited/

Properly install and configure SQL for SCCMhttps://stevethompsonmvp.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/installing-and-configuring-sql-server-for-configuration-manager/

VLFshttps://stevethompsonmvp.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/virtual-log-files-and-impact-on-configmgr-performance/

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