InstallingSQLServer2008•Chapter2 47 Head of the Class… The Architecture in Installation Planning One of the many times that architecture is critical is in the planning of upgrades and migrations. Prior to placing the installation disk near any disk drive, it is critical to know what the existing physical and software architecture currently is in the production and test environments. By documenting the “as-is” architecture, you’ll be able to accurately (and confidently) push back those scope creep requirements of making do with less. An example of a “problem upgrade” by a customer was communi- cated to me like this once: “The production SQL Server database environment with 4 GB of memory and 100 GB of data space works fine, but when we upgraded the database to a SQL Server instance with 1 GB of memory and 20 GB of disk on a slower processor space, it is significantly slower.” After a long pause, I repeated the scenario that was described to me and noted that the difference in the system configuration would mean that the application using the production server may require more memory and disks. I then asked the key question: What type of processing does the application perform against the database? Besides keeping up with the latest version, key questions to ask include: What are the goals of the upgrade? What is the architecture vision of the application(s) database you will be upgrading? Is the goal to improve performance or implement a new feature? Understanding what the end game expectation is key to a successful upgrade. Regardless of the intent of the upgrade, ensure that you have a repeatable process to measure and log the performance of specific business scenarios on the existing production system, the test upgrade Continued 48 Chapter2•InstallingSQLServer2008 environment, and the post-upgrade environment. Whatever the performance metrics you are going to measure, they must be specific. Improving general system performance by 10 percent does not cut it! Identify the specific set of reports, user interfaces, jobs, and transitions that are examples of a performance to benchmark. Make sure the test on the production system and the means to execute the performance metric are reproducible. Here is a checklist for installation planning: Environment inventory. Document every hardware and software component your existing system has now. At a minimum identify the following: On what drive and in which specific directory are the SQL Server software binaries located? On what drive are the SQL data files located? What are the maximum sizes of the underlying disks? How much free space is on the directories/drives? Are the disks on a SCSI or a SAN device? Note the size and speed (or in the case of a SAN device, partitions) of the disks for the data. How many database instances are on this server? What are the file sizes of all the databases for each instance? How many processors does the server have? How much physical memory is on the server? How much is allocated to each SQL Server instance? What are the current hardware resources and budgetary restraints to stage, test, and perform the installations and upgrades? Application and database architecture. Understand how the applica- tion and databases are used in the business applications. What specific functionality needs to be tested to ensure certain speed and/or security requirements? Is there a test plan to support the validation process after the upgrade and installation? What are the application dependencies to the databases to be upgraded? Continued InstallingSQLServer2008•Chapter2 49 Business service level. Understand what the business user’s expectations for a successful upgrade are. What are the business hours of the application databases? Is there a time window available for upgrading the SQL Server instances? Is the time window sufficient for an upgrade or is a migration to another server or instance possible? Are there clearly defined performance metrics? Test plan. Fully document and rehearse the test plan prior to the upgrade. Determine the testing process and success criteria. Design and implement verification tests for major processes in the installation/upgrade process. Determine the minimal downtime for the upgrade. Identify metrics to verify performance, so that there is no measurable performance degradation to key business processes. Document the upgrade process to use for testing and final implementation. Establish a backup and recovery plan. Perform test backups and the recovery process. Test the backup and recovery scenario again. How much time does the backup take? How long does it take to recover? Validate test plan by testing various scenarios. Log all test activities and review for any changes to test plan. Upgrade schedule – The timing details of the upgrade process should refine the specifics of the test plan. Decide dates and time schedules for the upgrade process. What specific skilled resources will be on-site or available to support the upgrade? Are the resources assigned to the upgrade experienced with the test procedures? If not, train resources with test procedure. What is the communication process for success or failure? 50 Chapter2•InstallingSQLServer2008 Upgrade Tools There are a number of tools that you can leverage to help in planning for your upgrade. They include: Best Practices Analyzer and SQL Upgrade Advisor. Running the Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) for SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 on your existing environments will help identify nonoptimal practices that can be addressed before upgrading to SQL Server 2008. The following versions of the BPA tools can be downloaded from the Microsoft download site. Best Practices Analyzer Tool for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 1.0 SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer (August 2008) The SQL Upgrade Advisor for SQL Server 2008 is essential in the planning of your SQL Server upgrade process. The SQL Upgrade Advisor analyzes your existing SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 instances and components, and then provides a detailed list of issues that are actionable. The report generated from the SQL Upgrade Advisor is stored as an XML file in the user’s default documents directory, under the subdirectory called SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor Reports. More important, the Upgrade Advisor report provides a detailed list of issues. Each issue is identified as advisory or required. The required issue identifies a corrective action to be done before or after the database upgrade to the database or to the calling applications. In addition to being included in the SQL Server 2008 installation CDs, the SQL Upgrade Advisor is a free download from the Microsoft download Web site – www.microsoft.com/downloads/ and enter SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor in the Search box. Save the downloaded SQLUA.msi file to disk. Run the appropriate executable version of SQLUA.msi on every server that contains a SQL Server 2000 or 2005 instance and component to analyze. Also note that the Upgrade Advisor requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and Windows Installer 4.5, and can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com/downloads. Once installed, the SQL Update Advisor can be executed from the Start menu: Click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and then click SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor. InstallingSQLServer2008•Chapter2 51 Hardware Requirements: CPU, Memory, and Disk SQL Server 2008 supports three different hardware platforms: 32-bit and two 64-bit technologies. 32-bit technology has been around for a number of years. Most SQL Server databases on the 32-bit platform are used for small and mid-size databases with limited number of users. In the 64-bit space, there are two different hardware implementations: x64 and Itanium (IA64). IA64 refers to support of the Itanium processor. x64 supports the following processors: AMD Opteron AMD Athlon 64 Intel Xeon with Intel EM64T support Intel Pentium IV with EM64T support There are several reasons to use 64-bit CPU technology over 32-bit. The first is the ability to use more memory. The additional memory supported by 64-bit is highly desirable for all Analysis Services as well as online transaction processing (OLTP) applications with a large number of concurrent users. Another reason is the ability to handle larger floating point numbers, from which scientific and engineering calculations benefit. 64-bit chips can directly use precision up to 2 64 versus 32-bit chips that are limited to 2 32 . 64-bit environments also have the capability of supporting up to 64 processors. 64-bit performance is also highly leveraged in scenarios where there is a high volume of concurrent users and large amount of data processing, which is the ideal scenario for SQL Server Enterprise and Standard Editions. Configuring & Implementing… Reporting Services and Upgrade Advisor If you have Reporting Services instances on a separate server from your database instance, be sure to install the Upgrade Advisor on the report server as well! . 2008) The SQL Upgrade Advisor for SQL Server 2008 is essential in the planning of your SQL Server upgrade process. The SQL Upgrade Advisor analyzes your existing SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server. enter SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor in the Search box. Save the downloaded SQLUA.msi file to disk. Run the appropriate executable version of SQLUA.msi on every server that contains a SQL Server. be executed from the Start menu: Click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and then click SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor. Installing SQL Server 2008 •Chapter2 51 Hardware