Application Protection: There’s Something Happening Here

There’s something happening here What it is ain’t exactly clear There’s a man with a gun over there Telling me I got to beware Yes, it’s blasphemy to simply change a classic like Buffalo Springfield’s “For What’s It Worth” – but I will anyway to prove my point. There’s something happening here If you haven’t [...]

Which SQL Recovery Model should I use?

This question keeps coming up over and over during the course of a typical month: Which SQL Recovery Model should I use? The answer is found in a simple matrix put together by EMC’s Mike Morris.   I believe he is also starting up his own blog as well, and I can’t wait to see that! [...]

Is SQL Server 2008 on VMware ESXi 4.1 supported? Find out using Microsoft’s SVVP Wizards

For DBA’s who have concerns about the support of their SQL server environments on virtualization technologies other than Hyper-V™ and Virtual Server, Microsoft provides the Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP). This article shows the simple steps required to complete the SVVP Support Policy Wizard to check support of your configuration. Step 1 Select the Support [...]

How to Build a Data Warehouse with EMC, Cisco, and Microsoft

The Microsoft SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse 3.0 reference configurations were built, designed, and tested by Cisco, EMC and Microsoft to provide: Architectural guidance for customers, partners and reseller who are evaluating, planning, or deploying Microsoft SQL Server based data warehouse solutions Performance and capacity guidance for selecting server, storage and connectivity solutions where [...]

FREE VNXe Simulator, Now Available!

A lot of folks are excited that we are offering the new VNXe “demo” for download… but wait – this isn’t a traditional “demo” with a recorded screen capture and someone talking over it … this is pretty much like taking a real test drive on a real system. So please, download our latest offering [...]

The Windows IT Pro Community Has Spoken! EMC Takes Gold… and Silver!

Best Hardware: Storage Gold Community Choice Award for EMC CLARiiON “Great build quality, powerful performance, and low price—the CLARiiON series is a winner.” http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/review/2010-Windows-IT-Pro-Editors-Best-and-Community-Choice-Awards/3.aspx Best SharePoint Product Silver Community Choice Award for EMC SourceOne http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/sharepoint/Editors-Best-Awards-and-Community-Choice-Awards-Announced-for-2010.aspx

Local Disk or SAN for SQL Databases?

Over at Ask SQL Server Central, I noticed an interesting question: Why should one use SAN instead of local hard disk?    I am really a novice in hardware configuration. Some of the answers were great: My favorite (written by Matt Whitfield): Performance. Most SANs allow you to attach extra shelves to the array, thereby giving [...]

Windows Geoclusters, Stretch-Clusters, and RecoverPoint/CE Failover

Taking a page out of Chief EMC Blogger Chuck Hollis‘ playbook, I’m attaching the graphics from entire PPT file that I thought would be important to highlight for this blog and its readers.  Some of the graphics didn’t fit to the page as well as I thought it would (I need to shrink them further). [...]

Storage and Virtualization for SQL DBA’s

I try to keep up with as many people who are interesting and important work in the field of Microsoft’s enterprise application products such as Exchange, SQL Server, and SharePoint and now and then it surprises me when someone really “gets it” in terms of their audience. Denny Cherry is one of those guys.  He [...]

SQL Data Warehousing with Fast Track

Put simply, Fast Track is a program launched by Microsoft that targets Data Warehousing workloads with a goal of achieving incredible performance with low-cost hardware. These prescriptive configurations include a blend of resources and best practices that really leverage the latest features in SQL 2008 Enterprise: CPU/Processors Memory Networking Storage EMC has helped to build [...]

Automating Perfmon with Perfcollect

[ Post by Paul Galjan ] When I started here at EMC, I was pleased to see that most of us would use actual host data (perfmon) to perform size out our storage.  We have a variety of cool tools that will analyze perfmon output and help visualize trends, size out replication bandwidth required and [...]

EMC’s Most Popular Microsoft SQL Server Documents

These are the most popular Microsoft SQL-focused documents that were downloaded within the past 3 months.  Simply click the link, download, and read whatever might interest you. White Paper: Implementing EMC CLARiiON CX4 with Enterprise Flash Drives for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Databases Applied Technology White Paper: EMC Tiered Storage for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 [...]

VPLEX and SharePoint Distance VMotion

Wondering how EMC’s storage federation device VPLEX might solve SharePoint DR concerns? A few of the engineers teamed up to create a reference architecture that shows you how it’s done. First, they listened to early customer feedback on what use cases might be most beneficial. What came up again and again – SharePoint (and SAP [...]

New SQL pricing changes virtualization affordability

Microsoft must see a lot of virtualized SQL Servers in their crystal ball, and have updated their pricing for SQL Server 2008 R2 to close a loophole on the affordability of SQL Enterprise Edition in virtualized environments. On a webcast I gave this week, one of our customers commented: we have 60 SQL VMs in [...]

Merill Aldrich SQL and SAN Guru Talks Flash

Merrill Aldrich just gave me permission to repost his great blog post that covers Flash drives on Symmetrix from sqlblog.com. Thanks Merill! The article was part of the T-SQL Tuesday SQL blog theme and without further ado, here it is: T-SQL Tuesday: #004: Real World SSD’s A contribution for T-SQL Tuesday #004, hosted by the [...]

T-SQL Tuesday #004: IO and Virtualizing SQL

From what I can tell, the SQL-based “meme” T-SQL Tuesday was started by Adam Machanic (industry guru and SQL blogger at SQLblogs.com).  This week’s entry is hosted by the prolific SQL expert Mike Walsh. The point? T-SQL Tuesday is the SQL Server blogosphere’s first recurring, revolving blog party. The idea is simple: Each month a [...]

ReBlog: SAN 101 for the DBA

Merrill Aldrich (SQL DBA) writes a great post that highlights some excellent points when thinking about your storage choice for SQL databases – or any mission critical applications for that matter. His rules are solid pieces of advice that I would advocate to any application or database owner that has data that could potentially get [...]

W2K8 R2 Hyper-V Live Migration with Exchange 2010, SQL 2008 R2, SCVMM, and EMC CLARiiON NQM

Longest title ever?  Thankfully I abbreviated SCVMM down from System Center Virtual Machine Manager.  Anyway… Microsoft has announced their launch dates for Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2, and Exchange 2010. EMC will be there to support them in many cities including Baltimore, NYC, Irvine, Raleigh, St Louis (to name a few). I was asked to [...]

How to Build an Efficient Application Infrastructure through Virtualization

I couldn’t figure out how to embed this into my blog, but this is a great, short video which shows how EMC is working with Microsoft to virtualize applications like Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint.  It’s only ten minutes long and showcases one of EMC’s great technologists, Brian Martin, as he speaks with Microsoft’s Jim Schwartz.

V-Max and Microsoft Application Documents

Here’s some documents from various departments within EMC around the new Symmetrix V-Max and Microsoft Applications. If you are implementing Exchange, SQL, or SharePoint in your environment today, I highly suggest you take a look (and read) the following: EMC Proven Solutions Reference Architecture for V-Max with SQL, SharePoint, and Exchange Whitepaper for V-Max with [...]

Virtualizing Microsoft Applications – Seminar Series

As you probably know, server virtualization helps you reduce costs on servers, power, cooling, and management and opens up some new options for backup, HA, DR, and adds a new level of flexibility. Since Microsoft now supports Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint virtualized environments – whether it be on Hyper-V or VMware through their Server Virtualization [...]

EMC DMX w/VP as Storage Utility for MSIT SQL

If you are wondering how SQL might work in a virtual environment, consider the following paper from Microsoft. Green IT in Practice: SQL Server Consolidation in Microsoft IT To sum it up, SQL has been thought (incorrectly) to be one of the few databases that are best kept on physical, but here Microsoft IT has [...]

Consolidated versus Distributed

Deconsolidation is a step back in time.

Tips for Dealing with Your Storage Admin

It happens everyday.  Yet another SQL admin falls victim to the technical prejudice of those who provide their storage.  It’s a sad story which is seen everyday throughout the currently developed world; at least those working in relatively well-funded companies.  UNIX guys make fun of Windows people. Mainframe guys refuse to believe Windows is even [...]

How Long is Your Backup Window?

Not long ago, I was giving a workshop to a few customers in Indianapolis.  The point was to educate them on what EMC could do for Microsoft apps and databases. At one point, during a short bio break, two guys were getting quite animated comparing the length of their nightly backup windows.  One was a [...]