Violin Memory Fast Track Data Warehouse Reference Architecture

www.vmem.com

All Silicon Data Warehouse:

Violin Memory Fast Track Data

Warehouse Reference Architecture

Installation and Configuration Guide 5U Design: Featuring Violin 6212 Storage Array

October 2012

Document: VM-DW-1 ICG

Edit version: 1.3

www.vmem.com Document: VM-DW-1 ICG Edit version 1.3 2

Table of Contents Introduction to Fast Track Data Warehouse ................................................................................................. 3

Fast Track Conceptual Overview ................................................................................................................... 3

Paradigm Shift ............................................................................................................................................... 4

Enabling new scenarios ................................................................................................................................. 6

Violin Memory 6212 Performance Overview ............................................................................................... 6

Hardware Overview ...................................................................................................................................... 8

Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 9

Installation and Configuration instructions ................................................................................................ 10

Installing HBA cards and Memory Modules ............................................................................................ 10

Connecting Compute Node to Storage Array ......................................................................................... 11

Operating System Installation ..................................................................................................................... 11

Pre Operating System Installation Tasks ................................................................................................. 11

Operating System Installation ................................................................................................................. 12

Service Packs and Special Instructions .................................................................................................... 12

Post Operating System Installation Configuration .................................................................................. 13

Storage Array Installation ........................................................................................................................... 15

HBA Drivers ............................................................................................................................................. 15

Configuring MPIO .................................................................................................................................... 16

Storage Array Configuration ....................................................................................................................... 17

Presenting LUN’s from Storage Array ......................................................................................................... 17

Creating Initiator Groups ........................................................................................................................ 18

Creating LUN’s ......................................................................................................................................... 19

Exporting LUN’s ....................................................................................................................................... 20

Adding Windows Volumes .......................................................................................................................... 22

SQL Server Installation ................................................................................................................................ 25

Pre SQL Server Installation Tasks ............................................................................................................ 25

Installing SQL Server ............................................................................................................................... 26

Post SQL Server Installation Configuration ............................................................................................. 27

Checklists .................................................................................................................................................... 30

Operating System .................................................................................................................................... 30

Storage .................................................................................................................................................... 30

SQL Server ............................................................................................................................................... 30

High Availability Scenario ............................................................................................................................ 31

Local HA .................................................................................................................................................. 31

Remote HA .............................................................................................................................................. 31

Bill of Materials ........................................................................................................................................... 32


Target audience: The target audience for this document consists of IT planners, architects, DBAs, CIOs,

CTOs, and business intelligence (BI) users with an interest in options for their BI applications and in the

factors that affect those options.

Introduction to Fast Track Data Warehouse The Microsoft Fast Track Data Warehouse is a combination of Microsoft SQL Server software running on

prescribed hardware configurations that have been specifically tested and approved for data warehouse

workloads by Microsoft to meet various levels of sustainable throughput. Fast Track is intended to

provide an out of the box experience that optimizes the utilization of hardware implemented in a data

warehouse solution. The goal is to provide predictable hardware performance and to remove the guess

work when choosing a hardware solution for a data warehouse implementation. Each configuration has

been thoroughly tested and rated for performance using both throughput certified and capacity

certified ratings. In a traditional system it is the growth or change in usage patterns that causes the

most challenges over the life of the system. As the databases grow in size so does the administration

time and complexity. As the number of users increases, so does the number of concurrently open

threads to storage. Each open query to the system could interact with multiple tables, partitions or data

files further multiplying the total number of concurrent access points to storage. As users come and go

the locality of the access points will migrate around. This causes hot spots and unpredictable

performance in production environments. This has lead decision makers to look for alternatives to their

current infrastructure in order to ensure the availability of consistent, sustainable performance.

Microsoft Fast Track Data Warehouse for Violin Memory is a robust solution to this problem, delivering

easy to follow setup instructions and predictable performance as measured by IOPs and throughput.

Violin Memory Storage Arrays enhance the predictability of the Fast Track system by delivering the same

performance (throughput) regardless of the number of threads, users, tables, files or LUNs. Throughput

will not degrade dependent upon usage patterns or data locality which allows administrators to avoid

chasing periodic or systemic system degradation issues. SSD and other implementations of flash are still

bound by their hard drive like architecture. SSDs, like their hard disk model, still can be affected by data

locality, RAID performance degradation and LUN striping issues. Ongoing maintenance and ongoing

troubleshooting is still required. Violin avoids this by presenting the array as one entire block of flash

storage. All data is securely pre-RAIDed inside of the array and all data is equally accessible, anywhere

in the array, at any time.

Additionally, the setup, configuration and management of the storage tier in the Violin architecture is

significantly faster and more simple than disk or SSD based solutions. There is no LUN striping to

architect, no separation of data, log and temp space or tiering software to admin and all LUNs perform

the same regardless of locality. Such consistency allows CIOs and technical staff to plan for and

maintain performance levels stipulated by an SLA with ease. Further, combing multiple Violin Memory

storage arrays results in linear scalability of the storage component of the system and DW.

Fast Track Conceptual Overview The goal of the Fast Track data warehouse system is to achieve the required performance while

remaining balanced at each layer. Right sizing seeks to deploy sufficient hardware to achieve

performance goals without deploying more hardware than is required to get the job done. Fast Track is


a set of hardware configurations known as a reference architecture that have been tested and approved

by Microsoft to deliver consistent and predictable performance. This allows customers to take the

guesswork out of determining hardware as the approved hardware configurations have already been

rated for certain sized data warehouses. While the focus of the Fast Track system is on the report

delivery side, the reference also addresses the staging and loading procedures to allow for predictable

results. It is intended to help avoid the common pitfalls of improperly designed and configured systems

and to bring predictability into your data warehouse performance. This is accomplished through using

specific and defined OS configurations, SQL Server settings, loading procedures and storage

configurations which will be outlined later in this paper.

A core requirement of Fast Track reference architectures is to align CPU bandwidth to that of the

storage system. The Fast Track system then provides a series of load steps and procedures to achieve

continued success. Violin Memory Flash Arrays are built with no moving parts such that each piece of

data is equally accessible at any moment. This makes the time consuming load tasks mostly irrelevant

as the array delivers the same high performance for both sequential and random I/O requests. The goal

is no longer to produce physically sequential data on spinning media, regardless of how long that takes.

The goal now is to import as quickly and simply as possible. Rotationally bound systems are also more

difficult to maintain over time as moving the data or rearranging large sections of data causes time

consuming tasks or downtime for the system. Changing one piece of data could cause an entire day to

be reloaded. Many users wanting to all touch data from the same day at the same time could cause

one set of spindles to degrade in performance. Violin’s unique offering of an all-flash array is specifically

designed for high speed random access to any data at any time which eliminates bottlenecks, hot spots

and data segregation requirements.

With this patented design, the array will deliver the same performance if it is hosting one huge LUN or

hundreds of smaller LUNs. The total aggregate IOPS for 4K blocks will be the same for the life or the

array. This eliminates the need to plan for different LUN allocations or leave large portions of purchased

space unused while preserving the option of using LUNs as a logical organization unit for ease of

administration.

This is the first all-silicon Data Warehouse Reference Architecture. There are no physical moving parts in

the Compute or Storage layer. This drastically reduces the chance of failure due to moving parts wearing

out over time. The whole solution is a 5U design delivering the performance normally measured in racks.

This guide focuses on the 11TB certified configuration. Violin Memory also has a larger 25TB certified

configuration based upon the 6232 model storage array. The 11TB (VM 6212) configuration can be

upgraded to 6232 by adding 40 VIMMs into the same enclosure.

Paradigm Shift The original Fast Track reference architecture requires specific, time consuming and complex steps to

sequentially load data into a data warehouse in order to achieve true physically sequential layouts of

data. These steps included single threaded loading steps, ordering data between steps and utilizing

multiple staging tables. It traded overall loading-speed for a physically sequential data layout to

minimize fragmentation and allow for physically sequential reads. This was created to satisfy the

requirement for predictable throughput during range scans (sequential reads) which is the typical

workload of a data warehouse system. The intent was to try to minimize movement of the read/write


heads on the disks. This is optimal when designing for spinning media. An all-flash array removes this

requirement and opens up the administrators to take the quickest path with parallel loads and reloading

data at will.

Another issue comes when many users need access to the same data at the same time or usage drifts

from the previously defined requirements. Best practices for spinning media provide the best likelihood

for success but do not guarantee it, especially over the multi-year life span of a data warehousing

system. Only an all-flash system can deliver both the quickest and easiest load times and deliver

guaranteed bandwidth regardless of the number of users, queries or data sources in use.

With Violin storage arrays, sequential loading of data is not necessary. The array can handle random

patterns and sequential patterns equally well and since there are no moving parts in the underlying

storage, there is no need to minimize movement of read/write heads. All LUNs are spread evenly over

all internal storage components providing maximum speed at all times. The result is that the system

delivers the same high level of performance for both sequential and random I/O reads and writes

regardless of the usage pattern.

Violin Memory Array is able to achieve this by writing each IO block to all VIMMS (memory modules)

that comprise the array. It is internally designed to scale out IO operations to maximize concurrent

usage of internal flash memory through parallelization down to the bit level. The Violin 6212 has 4 built

in RAID groups and each RAID group is made up of 5 VIMM’s, 1 for parity and 4 for data. Each 4K block

is written to all VIMM’s within the RAID group.

To achieve the optimal performance of storage, when deployed on spinning media, data is loaded into a

primary staging table with all cores (to fully utilize the cores and LUN’s), then ordered, then loaded

again to another staging table with just one core (to achieve true sequential writes), then partition

switched into the final table which was a meta-data operation. All data was written twice and once via a

single core so that no matter how large the system was it was throttled to the speed of one core. Many

DW administrators will understand this can take hours or days, in some cases filling their weekend with

work.

Violin storage arrays eliminate the ordering and second (single core) load steps. Like a modern storage

system should be, the system allows for parallel inserts of the data once and it is done. Getting the data

into the database should be simple, fast and the last step. Now it is. With Violin Memory Based DW the

data can be loaded directly in parallel into the DW real time without compromising the performance of

the read operations. This will dramatically reduce the complexity of your ETL processes while increasing

the speed of loading data by a significant factor.


With spinning media, migrations can also be a challenge as the administrator has to sequentially unload

the data from the old system and perform a full reload into the new Fast Track system to minimize

fragmentation. Fragmentation is not a concern with an all-silicon, random IO storage device.

In addition to eliminating the long and complex loading process, the Violin Memory storage array

accommodates easy maintenance and growth. There are no hot spots to migrate, no tiering tools to

configure and maintain and no costly add-on software to purchase.

Enabling new scenarios SQL Server natively allows for real time Data Warehouse updates while the DW is in full use. But, this

typically is not done because this will cause significant performance degradation due to logical

fragmentation. With a Violin Memory array the logical fragmentation level is irrelevant to throughput

and the administrator is free to utilize the full tools in front of them. Violin Architecture uses patented

technology to remove performance degradation normally associated with writes to hard disk, SSD drives

or Flash based PCIe cards. This performance degradation is called “Write Cliff” and is present on all SSD’s

and PCIe Flash Cards. Violin Memory does not have this problem. The Violin Memory storage array

allows for any administration to occur at any time while still delivering stable, reliable and predictable

performance.

Violin Storage Memory Arrays also deliver “five 9s” reliability and high availability inside the 3U unit.

Every component is doubled up (except flash) and hot swappable while the system is running and

delivering full data rate speeds. This hot swap functionality includes rolling updates to the firmware on

the system. With Violin Array 99.999% uptime is a reality with no requirement to double up storage.

Violin Memory 6212 Performance Overview The testing and certification process requires running a benchmarking system that includes a full set of

tests that simulate real world test queries and metrics. Microsoft requires this benchmark to establish

the MCR (Maximum Consumption Rate) and BCR (Benchmark Consumption Rate). The MCR is the

maximum throughput of a physical core on the server. Multiply the MCR by the number of physical

cores to determine the total CPU throughput capability.


MCR = 350MB/sec X 8 cores = 2,800 MB/sec

The benchmark consumption rate is the maximum throughput of the system under a predefined test

load taking into account the CPU, memory, and storage all working together.

BCR = 1,707 MB/sec

Metric Rating Comment

Rated Database Capacity TB 11 TB Using SQL Compression

Maximum User Database 13TB Using SQL Compression

Total RAW space 12TB Array Raw space without formatting

Total User Usable Space 6.6TB After formatting, active spares, full HA

Fast Track Average I/O CSI 4.11 GB/s Average throughput with SQL

2012Column Store Index Enabled

Peak I/O 2.46 GB/s

This table shows a rated capacity of 11 TB’s with compression enabled. Since administration does not

require any staging space and data is loaded directly into the array, most of the available physical

capacity is available for storing user data at a rated combined Fast Track I/O rating of 1706 MB/s. This is

an outstanding level of performance for a mid-sized system. The maximum Storage (Disk) IO throughput

measured using SQLIO was 1,418 MB/sec. While the actual DW test was running this hardware solution

was able to sustain throughput of 1,340 GB/sec under heavy load directly against the array, with no data

written to or read from RAM.

The storage array was able to maintain 98% of the maximum possible physical IO while under heavy

load compared to the maximum baseline IO rates which are measured running SQLIO when the system

is silent. What this means to end users is they can expect the storage array to provide efficiency under

heavy random I/O load that is roughly equivalent to the array’s maximum IO capability. This is a critical

advantage as data is loaded into the system and used in day to day operations. For comparison it is

common for spinning media based solutions to drop off to 50% or less of the maximum I/O throughput.

In general the more concurrent queries and users placed on a commodity spinning disk the lower the

performance.

Column Store Index is a new feature introduced with SQL Server 2012 that provides significant

performance gains as tested on the Violin Storage Array. The maximum sustained I/O with CSI enabled

was 6343 MB/sec (6.3GB/s). This was achieved with 5 session test. Averaging the 20 session CSI test,

with column store indexes present, the array’s average tested throughput was 4131MB/sec. The

reason is that column store index does not select all data but subsets from each SQL page and thereof

becomes somewhat random I/O. Commodity spinning disks will not benefit from this feature as

dramatically. Furthermore CSI can only be applied to read only tables, Violin Array’s performance

ensures that the index can be dropped and rebuild rapidly when compared to disk based solutions.

The storage array contains a management and administration portal known as vSHARE, which provides

additional insight into the performance of the flash storage above and beyond what you can capture


with traditional Windows Performance Monitor. The screenshot below illustrates the array’s

performance when running independent SQLIO tests. In this case the array was able to push close to

340,000 1 IOPs and sustain that level for the duration of the test. This is significant in the scenario where

a DW workload only needs a few hundred thousand IOPS; as the array will then provide a comfortable

margin of additional headroom which can be used to run additional applications or simply provide

ample headroom for running mission critical applications during production hours.

Hardware Overview The hardware chosen for this FT RA solution is highlighted below with more detailed information in the

Bill of Materials section. The goal of this section is to provide a high level layout of the hardware

environment.

Component Details

Server Violin Memory Compute VM-6027R-73DARF

CPU Intel Xeon E5-2643 3.3Ghz with Hyper-Threading

Total Sockets 2

Cores Per Socket 4

Total Physical Cores 8

Total Logical Cores 16

Memory 128 GB DDR3 (8 X 16GB DIMM's)

Internal Storage 2x Intel 520 Series SSD (240GB configured in RAID 1)

HBA 4x QLogic QLE2562 (dual port) (8Gbps)

Component Details

Storage Array

Violin 6212 Storage Array

6.8GB Usable Formatted

Hot Swappable Hot Spares (4)

vRAID

Operating System Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise SP1

SQL Server SQL Server 2012 Enterprise RTM (Build 11.0.2100)

1 Actual observed Read only performance. These numbers differ from Violin Memory official marking information, because official numbers are

conservative and always use 70% read and 30% write composition.


Conclusion The Violin Fast Track Reference Architecture provides the best combination of performance,

manageability out of all the Fast Track configurations tested and certified by Microsoft. The system

represent exceptionally reliable and predictable infrastructure. With total required space of 5Us the

system saves space and power as compared to many other solutions with the same performance

parameters. It provides a solid infrastructure for data warehousing needs reducing complexity and

increasing data loading speeds and efficiency by a significant factor. The storage design, using direct

connect instead of fabric switches provides a paradigm changing solution compared to other reference

architectures that require hundreds of disks and 12+ racks of space. The evolution of enterprise storage

has placed flash memory in a strategic market position to provide the most usable storage compared to

dollars spent over spinning disks. The 6212 Violin storage array comes out of the box ready to use

making setup easy and with the web based administration UI. The 6212 Violin Memory Storage Array

comes out of the box ready to use with a easy to use setup program and a minimal learning curve for

system administrators.

• For more information visit www.vmem.com

• To find out how to buy the solution or get a POC contact sales at [email protected]


0

Installation and Configuration instructions The server is a 2U configuration and the storage array is a 3U configuration so minimizing total rack

space was taken into account when architecting this hardware solution. With only 5U needed to house

this hardware, finding room in a data center should be an easy task.

The storage array and server are connected by 8 OM3 fiber channel cables, and with this solution, there

is no need for a fiber switch. Direct connect was the method chosen for connecting the storage array to

the server although nothing prevents using a fiber switch between the server and the storage array if

preferred. Switch can be utilized for additional Compute nodes, possibly intended for compute fail over

or to introduce another application or DW to the same storage array. Storage fail over is already

accounted for inside the 3U array.

Violin Memory 6212 storage arrays can also be configured with Inifiband Adapters, PCIe adapters (built

in) and 10Ge adapters. The PCIe architecture is designed to accept most standard networking

components given there are drivers to run them on the Memory.

One of the major benefits of Violin storage arrays is the ease of use and simplicity of administration

provided. This array is already pre-configured with internal RAID groups and hot spare VIMM cards. A

lot of the Fast Track reference guide focuses on how to lay out your storage and specify RAID levels for

different LUN’s. When looking to purchase storage, one thing to take into account is the price/usable

GB. As compared to RAID 10 configuration requirements (and attendant storage enclosures) of

commodity hard drives needed to satisfy IOPS requirements, Violin is a very desirable solution for

achieving the most IOPS with the lowest price/usable GB. The introduction of flash memory arrays is

starting to change the way people look at storage as a major bottleneck in their infrastructure.

Installing HBA cards and Memory Modules If system does not come preconfigured please validate that Memory Modules and HBA cards are

installed in the following manner. This configuration will deliver the highest possible throughput while

eliminating I/O contention on the motherboard.


1

Connecting Compute Node to Storage Array Below is a schematic of the Compute Node and Storage Array clearly showing direct fiber connection.

The server should have all 4 HBA cards installed per the previous diagram; the storage array comes with

4 HBA cards installed out of the box.

Operating System Installation This section will discuss the installation of the operating system. There are some prerequisite tasks as

well as some post installation configuration tasks that need to take place to configure the server for

optimal performance with accordance to Fast Track guidelines.

Pre Operating System Installation Tasks

Prior to starting the OS install please download the latest drivers from Super Micro’s web site as you will

need these during the OS install when choosing what disk to install the OS onto. Also you will need to

set up the internal storage in a RAID 1 configuration using the LSI configuration tool which can be

started when prompted during boot up by pressing the CTRL-C key combination. Below is a screenshot

of the LSI configuration utility where RAID 1 is set up for the internal storage.

When the <<<Press Ctrl-C to start LSI Logic Configuration Utility>>> prompt is

displayed, press Ctrl+C.

1. Choose Adapter SAS2308 and press ENTER

2. Select “RAID Properties” and hit ENTER


2

3. Select “Create RAID 1 Volume”

4. Choose “YES” under RAID Disk for the 2 internal SSD drives

a. Disk 1 should be Primary and Disk 2 is Secondary under “Drive Status”

5. Select “C” to create the volume

6. Choose “Save changes then exit this menu”

Operating System Installation

The operating system to be installed is Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. Please follow normal

installation steps for installing the operating system and apply SP1 and all current patches via Windows

Update. When prompted, indicate that you want to install the operating system onto the C:\ drive

created in the previous step.

Service Packs and Special Instructions

Please ensure you have SP1 installed for Windows Server 2008 R2. If SP1 was not included in your initial

install, SP1 is available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/en-

us/download/details.aspx?id=5842.

Below is a screen shot to tell if you have SP1 installed, this is obtained by looking at “Properties” of “My

Computer”


3

Post Operating System Installation Configuration

After the OS has been installed, you will need to enable the following roles in Server Manager

1. Multipath I/O

2. .NET Framework 3.5.1 features

Below is a screen shot of how your features section of Server Manager should look.


4

Next, change the OS Power Options from “Balanced” to “High Performance”

Last check the BIOS and make sure the Power Options are set to “Performance” and not controlled or

set through the BIOS.

Finally disable all 3 windows firewall’s in the OS


5

Storage Array Installation

HBA Drivers

Prior to connecting the storage array please ensure there are 4 HBA cards installed in both the server

and the storage array. These will be dual port Qlogic QLE 2562’s for 8 total IO paths. Make sure they are

present in the Storage Controllers section of Device Manager.


6

The current driver as of the time of this writing is 9.1.9.49 dated 3/14/2012. Please make sure your

driver is at least this version for the HBA cards.

Configuring MPIO

When configuring MPIO, please select “Discover Multi-Paths” and select “VIOLIN SAN ARRAY” and select

“ADD”. Reboot when asked.

After rebooting check your MPIO settings and you should see the storage array present as shown below.


7

Storage Array Configuration Connect the storage array to the server using OM3 fiber channel cables. You will need 8 of them to

connect all the ports on the server to the storage array to account for 4 dual port cards.

1. Connect serial port

2. Turn on

3. Configure networking

Presenting LUN’s from Storage Array You will need to create LUN’s using the Admin interface for the Violin Storage array. In our testing we

created 4 LUN’s with the following names and sizes. Note that unlike when using spinning disks, the

number of LUN’s with flash memory is not relevant but we did add some logical separation and these

sizes may be different in your environment.

1. SQLData01 2TB

2. SQLData02 2TB

3. SQLLog01 750GB

4. SQLStage01 2TB

The process of creating LUN’s is done from the admin web interface and is comprised of the following

steps

1. Creating Initiator Groups

2. Creating LUN’s

3. Exporting LUN’s


8

Creating Initiator Groups

From the home screen of the admin interface select “LUN Management” � “Manage Initiators”. From

this screen please select “Add igroup” from the top right section of the initiator groups

From this screen choose a name for the new initiator group

After the group is created, you will associate all 8 wwn’s to the new group. This is done by selecting the

new group created under the initiator groups section and selecting all 8 wwn’s under the manage

initiators section and then select “Save” followed by “Commit Changes” at the top center of the UI.

It should look like the following once completed.


9

Next click on “Manage Targets” under “LUN Management” and make sure each target is in a good state

At this point you have set up connectivity of the HBA’s between the server and the storage array. In the

next step we will create LUN’s using the admin web tool.

Creating LUN’s

For creating LUN’s, select “Manage LUNs” under the “LUN Management” section of the admin interface.

At this point you should see nothing allocated for the storage array. This process will take you through

creating, exporting, and presenting 1 LUN and this same process can be followed for the number of

LUN’s you decide to present. As mentioned earlier one of the major benefits of Violin storage is you

should achieve predictable performance irrespective of the number of LUN’s present.


0

Select “Create LUN” and from here you give it a name, size, and select 4096 bytes for the “Block Size”.

Click “Yes” when you get the warning box that says “Not all client systems support 4096 block size,

Continue to create LUN(s) using 4096?”

At this point you have a LUN present with a status of “not exported”

Exporting LUN’s


1

From the right side based on the screen shot above, select “Add Export” to bring up the “Add export for

LUN” screen. Make sure “All Initiators” and “All Ports” is selected and hit OK.

After this process, select “Commit Changes” button in the top middle of the screen.

You have successfully exported the LUN. If you rescan disks on the server using “Disk Management” you

will see the new LUN present.


2

Adding Windows Volumes Once the LUN’s have been presented to the OS, volumes need to be created and formatted in the NTFS

file system in Windows. Under Disk Management format the new Volumes with a 4096 block size. The

LUN’s should be presented as mount points.

Once you see the newly presented disk available in Disk Management the first step is to initialize the

disk by right clicking and selecting “Initialize Disk”, choose GPT (GUID Partition Table) for the partition

style.

At this point the new disk is now online, but unallocated. Next you want to right click the disk and select

“New Simple Volume”.


3

This brings up a wizard to walk you through the process. Make sure to allocate maximum possible size

for the volume. In this example we are using mount points but drive letters are fine as well if that is

easier to manage in your organization. Also make sure to use the NTFS file system with an“Allocation

unit size” of 4096.


4

At this point the drive is online and available for use. Remember to follow these same steps if creating

multiple LUN’s.

The last step is to remove content indexing for these drives. For this go to “Properties” of the drive

mount point or drive letter and remove the check box “Allow files on this drive to have contents indexes

in addition to file properties”.


5

SQL Server Installation The SQL Server installation used will be SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition and will be installed onto the

C:\. The user databases, tempdb, and transaction logs will be pointed to a mount point on the storage

array.

Pre SQL Server Installation Tasks

Prior to installing SQL Server, please create a domain Service Account to run the SQL Server Services, in

particular the Database Engine and the SQL Server Agent.

Once this service account is created, please assign it to the following Local Security Policies in the User

Rights Assignment section

1. Lock Pages In Memory

2. Perform Volume Maintenance Tasks

Below is a screen shot of these settings.

“Start” � “Administrative Tools” � “Local Security Policy”

Once this opens select “Local Policies” � “User Rights Assignment”


6

Installing SQL Server

The version of SQL Server for this reference architecture is SQL Server 2012 Enterprise. Please perform

a normal install and choose to install all components except Reporting Services (SharePoint)

components, You can choose all the defaults for now as we will change the data and TEMPDB locations

after the installation process. We chose to use the RTM build of SQL Server 2012 at the time of the

writing of this paper.

Below is the discovery report of all the installed features in the current installation


7

Post SQL Server Installation Configuration

There are a number of tasks to perform after the installation is complete to configure SQL Server.

1. Change the default database file locations to one of the mount points for the storage array.

Ensure that the DW database you create has the same number of files on each LUN of the same

size with auto growth enabled. It is assumed your backups will be to an external file share using

non Tier I storage.

2. Set the MIN/MAX Memory Settings for SQL Server

a. MIN = 100GB

b. MAX = 118GB


8

3. Move TEMPDB data file to storage array data LUN SQLData01 and create an additional data file

on SQLData02. Move the TEMPDB log file to LUN SQLLog01. Size each data file to ~150GB

4. Set the following startup parameters for the SQL Server Service using SQL Server Configuration

Manager

a. –E

b. –T1117


9

5. Resource Governor settings

Set the “Memory Grant %” to 16% from the default of 25% by opening “Management” and right

clicking “Resource Governor” and selecting “Settings”


0

6. Restart the SQL Server services

At this point SQL should be configured and ready for use. Please see below for checklists related to all

settings and configurations.

Checklists

Operating System

Area Description

OS Version Windows Server 2008 R2

SP Version Service Pack 1

Drivers Latest Downloaded from Super Micro before installation

Features Enabled Multipath I/O,

.NET Framework 3.5.1 Features

Power Settings High Performance (OS and BIOS)

Firewall Disable all windows firewalls

Storage

Area Description

Array LUNs 4096 block size

MPIO VIOLIN STORAGE ARRAY present

OS Volumes 4096 allocation unit size

OS Volumes content indexing turned of

SQL Server

Area Description

SQL Version SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition RTM

Startup Parameters -E

-T1117

Memory Settings MIN - 102400 MB

MAX - 120586 MB

MAXDOP 0 (unlimited)

Local Security Policy Perform Volume Maintenance Tasks

Lock Pages In Memory

Resource Governor Memory Grant % = 16%


1

High Availability Scenario

Local HA

It is possible to use the Violin 6212 storage array in a high availability scenario combined with Windows

Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) and SQL Server failover cluster instances (FCI). Since SQL Server

clustering requires shared storage, the LUN’s created on the 6212 must be presented to both compute

nodes in the cluster. The Violin 6212 fully supports SQL Server clustering and this section gives an

overview of how that configuration needs to be architected.

To use this scenario, 2 cards from the 6212 should be connected to 2 cards on each node of the WSFC.

Two dual port cards at 8Gb/s/port can deliver 4GB/s total which provides more than sufficient capacity

to avoid becoming the bottleneck in the storage path. Instead of one server with 4 HBA cards, the

configuration will have 2 servers with 2 HBA cards. When creating the initiator groups and exporting

LUN’s there will be 2 initiator groups, one for each server, and the LUN would be exported to both

initiator groups as well.

Once storage has been presented, you would perform a normal SQL Server cluster install. Below are

some links to setting up a SQL Server Failover Cluster:

SQL Server Clustering Prerequisites

SQL Server Failover Cluster Installation

Create a New SQL Server Failover Cluster

Add or Remove Nodes in a SQL Server Failover Cluster

Remote HA

Another HA/DR that is possible with the Violin storage array is cross data center disaster recovery. For

this scenario, you would need two arrays combined with SQL Server 2012 Mirroring or SQL Server 2012

AlwaysOn Availability Groups for database level protection and/or multi subnet cluster for instance level

protection. SQL Server 2012 has some great new features for multi subnet clustering that eliminate the

need for a stretch VLAN and a flexible failover policy so the administrator has control to set the levels

that would initiate a failover. Depending what the HA/DR objective is you can combine these instance

level and database level availability features utilizing multiple storage array’s and servers for the highest

level of protection. Below are some links to point you in the right direction to getting started with these

new SQL Server 2012 features:

Overview of SQL Server 2012 High Availability Solutions

SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering

Overview of AlwaysOn Availability Groups

AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances


2

Bill of Materials To order a complete solution please use the solution id: VM-DW-1

Individual Components are:

Qty Part Number Description

1 VM-SYS-6027R-73DARF Violin Memory Compute Node 6027R-73DARF

8 VM-MEM-DR316L-SL01-ER16 16GB DDR3-1600 2Rx4 ECC REG DIMM

2 VM-P4X-DPE52643-SR0L7 Sandy B. R 4C E5-2643 3.3G 10M 8GT 130W

2 VM-HDS-2TM-SSDSC2BW240A [NR]Intel 520 series, 240GB, SATA 6Gb/s, MLC

4 V-6000-NI-FCx2 4 HBA Cards for compute node

Qty Part Number Description

1 VM-6212-HA24-8xFC Violin Memory 6212 Storage Array

© Copyright 2012 Violin Memory, Inc. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for Violin

Memory products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein

should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Violin Memory shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions

contained herein.

Microsoft, Windows and SQL Server are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Intel and Xeon are trademarks of Intel

Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks and copyrights are property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

VM-DW-1 ICG ; Created October 2012;

Documents

Violin Memory Fast Track Data Warehouse Reference Architecture