Licensing MS SQL Server...

Does not need A license for MSSQL Server ?

Hi Goodmira,
If you use the SQL instance that comes with Connect, you don't need an additional license, as that is free. If you use an existing SQL DB that you purchased from Microsoft, you only need 1 license. The purpose of the free instance of SQL with Connect was for those instances where there are just a few usrs and there is no need for a full-scale DB. I would not recommend using it if you have over 100 users.

Similar Messages

Deployment and Licensing Of SQL Server

Can I Use SQL Server Express to use in production environment. If not then which edition should i use how can i go for unlimited Deployement for License and What is the cost of that product

Yes, you can use the Express Edition in production enviroment and it's also free for redistribution, see
http://www.microsoft.com/web/platform/database.aspx
Olaf Helper
[ Blog] [ Xing] [ MVP]

SQL Server Reporting Services Licensing

What end user licensing is required for a deployed SSRS solution? Is a run time execution license required for end users, and does it vary on whether or not they can amend run time parameters?

Hi Brian,
End user licensing is not required for a SQL Server Reporting Services deployment.
Only server licensing is required. However, there have 4 scenarios for licensing a SQL Server Reporting Services depolyment. Please see the section “How to License Reporting Services” in the following article for more information:
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2005/en/us/Special-Considerations.aspx#reporting
Please feel free to ask, if you have any more questions.
Thanks,
Jin Chen
Jin Chen - MSFT

License type of SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer

Hi everybody.
I need to install in my organization the software "SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer" but I need to know if this application it's free licensing. I have seen on several web sites about this tool it's free but not in official microsoft
web page. So, where can I find the official microsoft information about the type of licensing of "SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer" ?
Thanks of your support

Hello Erland.
I followed your advice and I have read the terms of use of this software. I stop at point 3 (which I highlighted). Based on this point, I doubt it is about using this application. Furthermore nowhere says that this software is free to use.
Would appreciate if someone can clarify this to me.
=============================================================
MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS
MICROSOFT SQL SERVER 2005 BEST PRACTICES ANALYZER:
These license terms are an agreement between Microsoft Corporation (or based on where you live, one of its affiliates) and you.
Please read them. They apply to the software named above, which includes the media on which you received it, if any.
The terms also apply to any Microsoft
* updates,
* supplements,
* Internet-based services, and
* support services
for this software, unless other terms accompany those items.
If so, those terms apply.
BY USING THE SOFTWARE, YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS.
IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT THEM, DO NOT USE THE SOFTWARE.
If you comply with these license terms, you have the rights below.
1.
INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. You may install and use any number of copies of the software on your devices.
2.
INTERNET-BASED SERVICES. Microsoft provides Internet-based services with the software.
It may change or cancel them at any time.
3.
SCOPE OF LICENSE. The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the software.
Microsoft reserves all other rights.
Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement.
In doing so, you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways.
You may not
* work around any technical limitations in the software;
* reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
* make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law, despite this limitation;
* publish the software for others to copy;
* rent, lease or lend the software;
* transfer the software or this agreement to any third party; or
* use the software for commercial software hosting services.
4.
BACKUP COPY. You may make one backup copy of the software.
You may use it only to reinstall the software.
5.
DOCUMENTATION. Any person that has valid access to your computer or internal network may copy and use the documentation for your internal, reference purposes.
6.
EXPORT RESTRICTIONS. The software is subject to United States export laws and regulations.
You must comply with all domestic and international export laws and regulations that apply to the software.
These laws include restrictions on destinations, end users and end use.
For additional information, see www.microsoft.com/exporting.
7.
SUPPORT SERVICES. Because this software is "as is," we may not provide support services for it.
8.
ENTIRE AGREEMENT. This agreement, and the terms for supplements, updates, Internet-based services and support services that you use, are the entire agreement for the software and support services.
9.
APPLICABLE LAW.
a. United States. If you acquired the software in the United States, Washington state law governs the interpretation of this agreement and applies to claims for breach of it, regardless of conflict of laws principles.
The laws of the state where you live govern all other claims, including claims under state consumer protection laws, unfair competition laws, and in tort.
b. Outside the United States. If you acquired the software in any other country, the laws of that country apply.
10.
LEGAL EFFECT. This agreement describes certain legal rights.
You may have other rights under the laws of your country.
You may also have rights with respect to the party from whom you acquired the software.
This agreement does not change your rights under the laws of your country if the laws of your country do not permit it to do so.
11.
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY. THE SOFTWARE IS LICENSED "AS-IS."
YOU BEAR THE RISK OF USING IT. MICROSOFT GIVES NO EXPRESS WARRANTIES, GUARANTEES OR CONDITIONS.
YOU MAY HAVE ADDITIONAL CONSUMER RIGHTS UNDER YOUR LOCAL LAWS WHICH THIS AGREEMENT CANNOT CHANGE.
TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER YOUR LOCAL LAWS, MICROSOFT EXCLUDES THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
12.
LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF REMEDIES AND DAMAGES. YOU CAN RECOVER FROM MICROSOFT AND ITS SUPPLIERS ONLY DIRECT DAMAGES UP TO U.S. $5.00.
YOU CANNOT RECOVER ANY OTHER DAMAGES, INCLUDING CONSEQUENTIAL, LOST PROFITS, SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES.
This limitation applies to
* anything related to the software, services, content (including code) on third party Internet sites, or third party programs; and
* claims for breach of contract, breach of warranty, guarantee or condition, strict liability, negligence, or other tort to the extent permitted by applicable law.
It also applies even if Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages.
The above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you because your country may not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental, consequential or other damages.
Please note: As this software is distributed in Quebec, Canada, some of the clauses in this agreement are provided below in French.

System Center Licensing, SQL Server

We want to implement four System Center 2012 components (SCOM, SCDPM, SCCM, SCVMM). We have 4 SC Datacenter licenses. How do we license the 4 SQL servers we need for these components (as SQL license is included in the SC license)? Should I apply the same
license of SC to SQL during installation? Is it a valid option of licensing the SQL ?
What about the licensing of the operating system (Windows Server 2012 R2) where I am going to install SC components? Can it use the same SC license or does it need one on its own?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Megi Shyle

Hi Megi Shyle
System Center 2012 R2 includes a license for SQL Server Standard (if you need to run SQL Server Enterprise you will need to license this separately).
The Windows Server license is not included as part of the System Center 2012 R2 license.
You can find out more about licensing from:
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/SystemCenter2012-R2.aspx#tab=2
You can also get more information from the
System Center 2012 R2 Licensing Guide and your Microsoft account contact or licensing contact can also provide answers that are specific to your situation.
Regards,
Richard
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

SQL Server Licensing For EPM

If using SQL Server as your relational database to support your Oracle EPM environment and SQL Server is not licensed "Per-Processor". Do each of your Planning\Essbase users need a SQL Server CAL or do you just need one for the account being used to access the repository?

Based on my understanding (and you should speak with Microsoft directly) is anyone that is an end user of the solution needs to have a CAL and/or SQL needs to be CPU licensed. This is also how Oracle treats Essbase with third party software which may only use one batch user id -- you wouldn't be able to license one Essbase user and then have 3000 users coming off of a third party solution.
At the end of the day the CPU licensing for SQL server will make the most sense unless you have a really really small environment.
Regards,
John A. Booth
http://www.metavero.com

Disaster Recovery-MS SQL Server 2008 License

We are planning to build a Disaster Recovery environment for Production Environment. Technology used: SharePoint Foundation2010, MSBI and MS Sql Server 2008 Standard.
Current Production Server has SQL Server2008 standard (Core license) installed in it.
Do we need separate MS SQL Server 2008 licence for Disaster Recovery (DR) Server in order to keep the DR and Production database running in both the environments simultaneously.
We don't want to keep database down in DR environment as this impacts our code deployment process.
Each time code gets deployed to Production, we will have to follow few extra steps to keep DR and Production in sync.
Example:
1. Bring up the MS SQL Server database in DR environment
2. Deploy the solution and bring down the DR database.
Please suggest...

We are planning to build a Disaster Recovery environment for Production Environment. Technology used: SharePoint Foundation2010, MSBI and MS Sql Server 2008 Standard.
Current Production Server has SQL Server2008 standard (Core license) installed in it.
Do we need separate MS SQL Server 2008 licence for Disaster Recovery (DR) Server in order to keep the DR and Production database running in both the environments simultaneously.
We don't want to keep database down in DR environment as this impacts our code deployment process.
Each time code gets deployed to Production, we will have to follow few extra steps to keep DR and Production in sync.
Example:
1. Bring up the MS SQL Server database in DR environment
2. Deploy the solution and bring down the DR database.
Please suggest...
Yes you will need license for SQL server in DR environment.
Licensing is wast and non technical question so it will be best answered by Licensing expert.
For more detailed information regarding to the license issue, please call 1-800-426-9400Call: 1-800-426-9400, Monday through Friday, 6:00 A.M. to 6:00
P.M. (Pacific Time) to speak directly to a Microsoft licensing specialist. For international customers, please use the Guide to Worldwide Microsoft Licensing Sites to
Find contact information in your locations.
Please mark this reply as the answer or vote as helpful, as appropriate, to make it useful for other readers

SQL Server 2014 License compatibility

I have SQL Server 2014 core base Licenses. Can I use these licenses for SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 and 2008R2 as well?

Try the below:
Microsoft India Contact Details:-
Toll Free Number:- 1800-11-1100
Toll Free Number:- 1800-102-1100
Toll Phone Number:- +91-80-40103000
http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/licensing/how-to-buy/how-to-buy.aspx

How to install sql server 2012 using the license of sql 2014

Hello,
We want to install sql server 2012 on a server because of an application that can not work with sql server 2014.
We have a license for sql server 2014. The license is not visible for sql 2014 in our licenses because it is now included in the installation package. We also can not get a license key for SQL 2012 server now.
How can we get a valid sql server 2012 license key?
Thanks,
Gr. Peter.

Hello Peter,
This is a community forum for technical questions & issues.
For question regarding pricing / licensing please contact a Microsoft sales partner or licensing expert.
Call (1-800-426-9400), Monday through Friday, 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM PST to speak directly to Microsoft licensing specialist.
Regards.
T-SQL Articles
T-SQL e-book by TechNet Wiki Community
T-SQL blog

SQL Server Developer Edition Licensing

SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition states that it can be used for end client acceptance testing. My question is this.
Does every end client that will be doing testing need to have a license or cal to be able to use the database for testing, or do you only need to buy licenses for the developers that will be developing against it?

Each license of SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition entitles one developer to use the software on as many systems as necessary and additional developers can use the software by purchasing additional licenses
Anyway for license related questions, it is better to ask Microsoft Licensing Team directly. You might want to look at these links:
Licensing Question
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/licensing.mspx
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2435258&SiteID=1
Toll free numbers
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/bb856399.aspx
Thanks,
Leks

SQL Server Processor/Core Licensing and Windows CALs

I've scoured the internet for an answer to this question, so I'm assuming the scenario isn't as common as I think, or people are purposely looking the other way because they don't want to know the answer :)
The application in question is pretty simple - An ASP.net web application using ASP.net forms auth (no end-user Windows Authentication). Using Windows Server 2008 Web Edition, we've confirmed that no Windows CAL is required on the front-end web tier.
So then on the back-end data tier (SQL Server) it also seems pretty straight forward. As far as I can tell, the SQL Server licensing makes it pretty clear "...users who input data into, query, or view data through a web-based application... require
a CAL". So that makes it pretty obvious, you need a CAL or a per-processor/pre-core license of SQL Server.
Here's where it gets tricky... What about the licensing requirements for the Windows Server that SQL Server is running on? Do we need a
WindowsCAL for each connection from the Web Tier to the SQL Server? Note that Windows CALs and SQL Server CALs are completely separate in terms if purchasing, and nothing says a SQL Server CAL is of a higher
order than a Windows CAL (thereby covering both).
It would seem ridiculous (IMHO) to allow unlimited connections to SQL, but then dump you back to the CAL model on Windows (since there is no "unlimited" option in Windows Server). But licensing is a strange beast, and non-compliance is not
something I'm interested in.
Any insight with pointers to Microsoft documentation would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks guys,

For those of you who would like an answer on this without calling licensing support, here's the answer :)
Windows Server 2012 does NOT have a CAL limitation for "public" web traffic. I specifically asked about ASP.net Forms Authenticated users, and the licensing specialist said any website that uses anonymous authentication which then passes
auth onto some other back-end process (e.g. ASP.net forms auth) you do not need a Windows CAL. You DO need a Windows CAL if your application is somehow tied to services on the Windows box where the website user actually enters credentials which are authenticated
against the local account store or domain controller. So to me, that's a pretty simple answer -
anonymous auth = No CALs
integrated auth = CAL required
Ok, onto SQL Server... As quoted from my original post, SQL licensing makes it very clear that ANY connection to the database requires a CAL, even if it's multiplexed through IIS or some other middle-tier. Bottom line? Simple answer here as well:
public website with a SQL back-end = per-socket or core-licensing (since you can't count "CALs" on a public site)
Finally, the most illusive question (for me anyway). What about the copy of Windows running your SQL Server? the answer here was - No CALs required if it's purely a SQL Server connection. Meaning, if all your Windows server is doing
is running SQL Server and fielding query requests from your front-end IIS ASP.net app, you're do NOT need any Windows Server CALs. You obviously do need SQL CALs or socket/core licenses, which I covered above. You will however need Windows CALs
on your SQL Server box for any Support specialists or Deployment folks who remote into the machine using TS or using UNC file shares and such to work with the server.
Hopefully that helps someone else looking for a quick answer. And as the moderator noted, if that doesn't make sense you should definitely call the licensing specialist. They are very helpful and surprising quick to answer questions (without
any sales pressure).
Thanks for posting this, I am in the same boat. I will have a public facing web server and a backend SQL server. The web site requires all users to login so they can see the content. We use forms authentication as well (no Windows or Active Directory authentication).
The application does all the authentication itself using the backend database (credentials are stored in a database table).
I just called the licensing pre-sales number and spoke to a rep who said the web server would require CALs (or an External Connector in this case), because I am requiring people to login to view the content. He said it did not matter what the authentication
method was. I clearly explained the web application handles all the authentication, but he still said we would need CALs in this case because users must authenticate to access the content. He likened it to a museum. If you need to buy a ticket to get in to
see the content (in this case login to the web site), you need CALs he said.
He also said I would need Windows Server CALs/EC for the Windows server that hosts the database. I will be using SQL Core licensing, so no additional SQL CALs will be needed.
Just thought I would share what I learned.
Sorry to dredge up an old thread, but I have been doing a lot of reading on CALs lately in anticipation of launching a public website. Reading the license agreement, I don't think you need CALs on the front end Windows Server 2012 just because people
are authenticating. The Windows Server 2012 license agreement makes no mention of this that I can find. It only says you need CALs for employees or your affiliates' employees. A non-employee visitor does not fall under the definition an affiliate.
The SQL Server licensing is tricky, and not written for public website access. Is every user with an account to your online store need a CAL? The only other option is SQL Server Enterprise licensed by CPU cores.

Increase Performance and ROI for SQL Server Environments

May 2015
Explore
The Buzz from Microsoft Ignite 2015
NetApp was in full force at the recent Microsoft Ignite show in Chicago, talking about solutions for hybrid cloud, and our proven solutions for Microsoft SQL Server and other Microsoft applications.
Hot topics at the NetApp booth included:
OnCommand® Shift. A revolutionary technology that lets you move virtual machines back and forth between VMware and Hyper-V environments in minutes.
Azure Site Recovery to NetApp Private Storage. Replicate on-premises SAN-based applications to NPS for disaster recovery in the Azure cloud.
These tools give you greater flexibility for managing and protecting important business applications.
Chris Lemmons
Director, EIS Technical Marketing, NetApp
If your organization runs databases such as Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle DB, you probably know that these vendors primarily license their products on a "per-core" basis. Microsoft recently switched to "per-core" rather than "per-socket" licensing for SQL Server 2012 and 2014. This change can have a big impact on the total cost of operating a database, especially as core counts on new servers continue to climb. It turns out that the right storage infrastructure can drive down database costs, increase productivity, and put your infrastructure back in balance.
In many customer environments, NetApp has noticed that server CPU utilization is low—often on the order of just 20%. This is usually the result of I/O bottlenecks. Server cores have to sit and wait for I/O from hard disk drives (HDDs). We've been closely studying the impact of all-flash storage on SQL Server environments that use HDD-based storage systems. NetApp® All Flash FAS platform delivers world-class performance for SQL Server plus the storage efficiency, application integration, nondisruptive operations, and data protection of clustered Data ONTAP®, making it ideal for SQL Server environments.
Tests show that All Flash FAS can drive up IOPS and database server CPU utilization by as much as 4x. And with a 95% reduction in latency, you can achieve this level of performance with half as many servers. This reduces the number of servers you need and the number of cores you have to license, driving down costs by 50% or more and paying back your investment in flash in as little as six months.
Figure 1) NetApp All Flash FAS increases CPU utilization on your SQL Server database servers, lowering costs.
Source: NetApp, 2015
Whether you're running one of the newer versions of SQL Server or facing an upgrade of an earlier version, you can't afford not to take a second look at your storage environment.
End of Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is Rapidly Approaching
Microsoft has set the end of extended support for SQL Server 2005 for April 2016—less than a year away. With support for Microsoft Windows 2003 ending in July 2015, time may already be running short.
If you're running Windows Server 2003, new server hardware is almost certainly needed when you upgrade SQL Server. Evaluate your server and storage options now to get costs under control.
Test Methodology
To test the impact of flash on SQL Server performance, we replaced a legacy HDD-based storage system with an All Flash FAS AFF8080 EX. The legacy system was configured with almost 150 HDDs, a typical configuration for HDD storage supporting SQL Server. The AFF8080 EX used just 48 SSDs.
Table 1) Components used in testing.
Test Configuration Components
Details
SQL Server 2014 servers
Fujitsu RX300
Server operating system
Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 Standard Edition
SQL Server database version
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition
Processors per server
2 6-core Xeon E5-2630 at 2.30 GHz
Fibre channel network
8Gb FC with multipathing
Storage controller
AFF8080 EX
Data ONTAP version
Clustered Data ONTAP® 8.3.1
Drive number and type
48 SSD
Source: NetApp, 2015
The test configuration consisted of 10 database servers connected through fibre channel to both the legacy storage system and the AFF8080 EX. Each of the 10 servers ran SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition.
The publicly available HammerDB workload generator was used to drive an OLTP-like workload simultaneously from each of the 10 database servers to storage. We first directed the workload to the legacy storage array to establish a baseline, increasing the load to the point where read latency consistently exceeded 20ms.
That workload was then directed at the AFF8080 EX. The change in storage resulted in an overall 20x reduction in read latency, a greater than 4x improvement in IOPS, and a greater than 4x improvement in database server CPU utilization.
Figure 2) NetApp All Flash FAS increases IOPS and server CPU utilization and lowers latency.
Source: NetApp, 2015
In other words, the database servers are able to process four times as many IOPS with dramatically lower latency. CPU utilization goes up accordingly because the servers are processing 4x the work per unit time.
The All Flash FAS system still had additional headroom under this load.
Calculating the Savings
Let's look at what this performance improvement means for the total cost of running SQL Server 2014 over a 3-year period. To do the analysis we used NetApp Realize, a storage modeling and financial analysis tool designed to help quantify the value of NetApp solutions and products. NetApp sales teams and partners use this tool to assist with return on investment (ROI) calculations.
The calculation includes the cost of the AFF8080 EX, eliminates the costs associated with the existing storage system, and cuts the total number of database servers from 10 to five. This reduces SQL Server licensing costs by 50%. The same workload was run with five servers and achieved the same results. ROI analysis is summarized in Table 2.
Table 2) ROI from replacing an HDD-based storage system with All Flash FAS, thereby cutting server and licensing costs in half.
Value
Analysis Results
ROI
65%
Net present value (NPV)
$950,000
Payback period
six months
Total cost reduction
More than $1 million saved over a 3-year analysis period compared to the legacy storage system
Savings on power, space, and administration
$40,000
Additional savings due to nondisruptive operations benefits (not included in ROI)
$90,000
Source: NetApp, 2015
The takeaway here is that you can replace your existing storage with All Flash FAS and get a big performance bump while substantially reducing your costs, with the majority of the savings derived from the reduction in SQL Server licensing costs.
Replace your existing storage with All Flash FAS and get a big performance bump while substantially reducing your costs.
Maximum SQL Server 2014 Performance
In addition to the ROI analysis, we also measured the maximum performance of the AFF8080 EX with SQL Server 2014. A load-generation tool was used to simulate an industry-standard TPC-E OLTP workload against an SQL Server 2014 test configuration.
A two-node AFF8080 EX achieved a maximum throughput of 322K IOPS at just over 1ms latency. For all points other than the maximum load point, latency was consistently under 1ms and remained under 0.8ms up to 180K IOPS.
Data Reduction and Storage Efficiency
In addition to performance testing, we looked at the overall storage efficiency savings of our SQL Server database implementation. The degree of compression that can be achieved is dependent on the actual data that is written and stored in the database. For this environment, inline compression was effective. Deduplication, as is often the case in database environments, provided little additional storage savings and was not enabled.
For the test data used in the maximum performance test, we measured a compression ratio of 1.5:1. We also tested inline compression on a production SQL Server 2014 data set to further validate these results and saw a 1.8:1 compression ratio.
Space-efficient NetApp Snapshot® copies provide additional storage efficiency benefits for database environments. Unlike snapshot methods that use copy-on-write, there is no performance penalty; unlike full mirror copies, NetApp Snapshot copies use storage space sparingly. Snapshot copies only consume a small amount of storage space for metadata and additional incremental space is consumed as block-level changes occur. In a typical real-world SQL Server deployment on NetApp storage, database volume Snapshot copies are made every two hours.
First introduced more than 10 years ago, NetApp FlexClone® technology also plays an important role in SQL Server environments. Clones are fully writable, and, similar to Snapshot copies, only consume incremental storage capacity. With FlexClone, you can create as many copies of production data as you need for development and test, reporting, and so on. Cloning is a great way to support the development and test work needed when upgrading from an earlier version of SQL Server. You'll sometimes see these types of capabilities referred to as "copy data management."
A Better Way to Run Enterprise Applications
The performance benefits that all-flash storage can deliver for database environments are significant: more IOPS, lower latency, and an end to near-constant performance tuning.
If you think the performance acceleration that comes with all-flash storage is cost prohibitive, think again. All Flash FAS doesn't just deliver a performance boost, it changes the economics of your operations, paying for itself with thousands in savings on licensing and server costs. In terms of dollars per IOPS, All Flash FAS is extremely economical relative to HDD.
And, because All Flash FAS runs NetApp clustered Data ONTAP, it delivers the most complete environment to support SQL Server and all your enterprise applications with capabilities that include comprehensive storage efficiency, integrated data protection, and deep integration for your applications.
For complete details on this testing look for NetApp TR-4303, which will be available in a few weeks. Stay tuned to Tech OnTap for more information as NetApp continues to run benchmarks with important server workloads including Oracle DB and server virtualization.
Learn more about NetApp solutions for SQL Server and NetApp All-flash solutions.
Quick Links
Tech OnTap Community
Archive
PDF

May 2015
Explore
The Buzz from Microsoft Ignite 2015
NetApp was in full force at the recent Microsoft Ignite show in Chicago, talking about solutions for hybrid cloud, and our proven solutions for Microsoft SQL Server and other Microsoft applications.
Hot topics at the NetApp booth included:
OnCommand® Shift. A revolutionary technology that lets you move virtual machines back and forth between VMware and Hyper-V environments in minutes.
Azure Site Recovery to NetApp Private Storage. Replicate on-premises SAN-based applications to NPS for disaster recovery in the Azure cloud.
These tools give you greater flexibility for managing and protecting important business applications.
Chris Lemmons
Director, EIS Technical Marketing, NetApp
If your organization runs databases such as Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle DB, you probably know that these vendors primarily license their products on a "per-core" basis. Microsoft recently switched to "per-core" rather than "per-socket" licensing for SQL Server 2012 and 2014. This change can have a big impact on the total cost of operating a database, especially as core counts on new servers continue to climb. It turns out that the right storage infrastructure can drive down database costs, increase productivity, and put your infrastructure back in balance.
In many customer environments, NetApp has noticed that server CPU utilization is low—often on the order of just 20%. This is usually the result of I/O bottlenecks. Server cores have to sit and wait for I/O from hard disk drives (HDDs). We've been closely studying the impact of all-flash storage on SQL Server environments that use HDD-based storage systems. NetApp® All Flash FAS platform delivers world-class performance for SQL Server plus the storage efficiency, application integration, nondisruptive operations, and data protection of clustered Data ONTAP®, making it ideal for SQL Server environments.
Tests show that All Flash FAS can drive up IOPS and database server CPU utilization by as much as 4x. And with a 95% reduction in latency, you can achieve this level of performance with half as many servers. This reduces the number of servers you need and the number of cores you have to license, driving down costs by 50% or more and paying back your investment in flash in as little as six months.
Figure 1) NetApp All Flash FAS increases CPU utilization on your SQL Server database servers, lowering costs.
Source: NetApp, 2015
Whether you're running one of the newer versions of SQL Server or facing an upgrade of an earlier version, you can't afford not to take a second look at your storage environment.
End of Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is Rapidly Approaching
Microsoft has set the end of extended support for SQL Server 2005 for April 2016—less than a year away. With support for Microsoft Windows 2003 ending in July 2015, time may already be running short.
If you're running Windows Server 2003, new server hardware is almost certainly needed when you upgrade SQL Server. Evaluate your server and storage options now to get costs under control.
Test Methodology
To test the impact of flash on SQL Server performance, we replaced a legacy HDD-based storage system with an All Flash FAS AFF8080 EX. The legacy system was configured with almost 150 HDDs, a typical configuration for HDD storage supporting SQL Server. The AFF8080 EX used just 48 SSDs.
Table 1) Components used in testing.
Test Configuration Components
Details
SQL Server 2014 servers
Fujitsu RX300
Server operating system
Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 Standard Edition
SQL Server database version
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition
Processors per server
2 6-core Xeon E5-2630 at 2.30 GHz
Fibre channel network
8Gb FC with multipathing
Storage controller
AFF8080 EX
Data ONTAP version
Clustered Data ONTAP® 8.3.1
Drive number and type
48 SSD
Source: NetApp, 2015
The test configuration consisted of 10 database servers connected through fibre channel to both the legacy storage system and the AFF8080 EX. Each of the 10 servers ran SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition.
The publicly available HammerDB workload generator was used to drive an OLTP-like workload simultaneously from each of the 10 database servers to storage. We first directed the workload to the legacy storage array to establish a baseline, increasing the load to the point where read latency consistently exceeded 20ms.
That workload was then directed at the AFF8080 EX. The change in storage resulted in an overall 20x reduction in read latency, a greater than 4x improvement in IOPS, and a greater than 4x improvement in database server CPU utilization.
Figure 2) NetApp All Flash FAS increases IOPS and server CPU utilization and lowers latency.
Source: NetApp, 2015
In other words, the database servers are able to process four times as many IOPS with dramatically lower latency. CPU utilization goes up accordingly because the servers are processing 4x the work per unit time.
The All Flash FAS system still had additional headroom under this load.
Calculating the Savings
Let's look at what this performance improvement means for the total cost of running SQL Server 2014 over a 3-year period. To do the analysis we used NetApp Realize, a storage modeling and financial analysis tool designed to help quantify the value of NetApp solutions and products. NetApp sales teams and partners use this tool to assist with return on investment (ROI) calculations.
The calculation includes the cost of the AFF8080 EX, eliminates the costs associated with the existing storage system, and cuts the total number of database servers from 10 to five. This reduces SQL Server licensing costs by 50%. The same workload was run with five servers and achieved the same results. ROI analysis is summarized in Table 2.
Table 2) ROI from replacing an HDD-based storage system with All Flash FAS, thereby cutting server and licensing costs in half.
Value
Analysis Results
ROI
65%
Net present value (NPV)
$950,000
Payback period
six months
Total cost reduction
More than $1 million saved over a 3-year analysis period compared to the legacy storage system
Savings on power, space, and administration
$40,000
Additional savings due to nondisruptive operations benefits (not included in ROI)
$90,000
Source: NetApp, 2015
The takeaway here is that you can replace your existing storage with All Flash FAS and get a big performance bump while substantially reducing your costs, with the majority of the savings derived from the reduction in SQL Server licensing costs.
Replace your existing storage with All Flash FAS and get a big performance bump while substantially reducing your costs.
Maximum SQL Server 2014 Performance
In addition to the ROI analysis, we also measured the maximum performance of the AFF8080 EX with SQL Server 2014. A load-generation tool was used to simulate an industry-standard TPC-E OLTP workload against an SQL Server 2014 test configuration.
A two-node AFF8080 EX achieved a maximum throughput of 322K IOPS at just over 1ms latency. For all points other than the maximum load point, latency was consistently under 1ms and remained under 0.8ms up to 180K IOPS.
Data Reduction and Storage Efficiency
In addition to performance testing, we looked at the overall storage efficiency savings of our SQL Server database implementation. The degree of compression that can be achieved is dependent on the actual data that is written and stored in the database. For this environment, inline compression was effective. Deduplication, as is often the case in database environments, provided little additional storage savings and was not enabled.
For the test data used in the maximum performance test, we measured a compression ratio of 1.5:1. We also tested inline compression on a production SQL Server 2014 data set to further validate these results and saw a 1.8:1 compression ratio.
Space-efficient NetApp Snapshot® copies provide additional storage efficiency benefits for database environments. Unlike snapshot methods that use copy-on-write, there is no performance penalty; unlike full mirror copies, NetApp Snapshot copies use storage space sparingly. Snapshot copies only consume a small amount of storage space for metadata and additional incremental space is consumed as block-level changes occur. In a typical real-world SQL Server deployment on NetApp storage, database volume Snapshot copies are made every two hours.
First introduced more than 10 years ago, NetApp FlexClone® technology also plays an important role in SQL Server environments. Clones are fully writable, and, similar to Snapshot copies, only consume incremental storage capacity. With FlexClone, you can create as many copies of production data as you need for development and test, reporting, and so on. Cloning is a great way to support the development and test work needed when upgrading from an earlier version of SQL Server. You'll sometimes see these types of capabilities referred to as "copy data management."
A Better Way to Run Enterprise Applications
The performance benefits that all-flash storage can deliver for database environments are significant: more IOPS, lower latency, and an end to near-constant performance tuning.
If you think the performance acceleration that comes with all-flash storage is cost prohibitive, think again. All Flash FAS doesn't just deliver a performance boost, it changes the economics of your operations, paying for itself with thousands in savings on licensing and server costs. In terms of dollars per IOPS, All Flash FAS is extremely economical relative to HDD.
And, because All Flash FAS runs NetApp clustered Data ONTAP, it delivers the most complete environment to support SQL Server and all your enterprise applications with capabilities that include comprehensive storage efficiency, integrated data protection, and deep integration for your applications.
For complete details on this testing look for NetApp TR-4303, which will be available in a few weeks. Stay tuned to Tech OnTap for more information as NetApp continues to run benchmarks with important server workloads including Oracle DB and server virtualization.
Learn more about NetApp solutions for SQL Server and NetApp All-flash solutions.
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How To Use Reporting Services On SQL Server 2000 ?

Hi all .
Today , I has a issue .
Normal , if the customer use SQl Server 2005 , it is no proplem , so if use SQL Server 2000 , Now , I want to use Reporting services on SQL Server 2000 , but , I am searching on Internet , so I know , if I want to use SQL 2000 reporting server , I must have license of SQL server 2000 .
is Every body idea for this issue ? .
Please help me .
Thanks alot .

Ok ,anyway thanks alot ,.

Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Is there any limitations in regards of CAL with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 developer edition?

From the SQL Server 2014 Licensing Guide:
SQL Server 2014 Developer Edition is a full-function version of SQL Server software—including all of the features and capabilities of Enterprise Edition—licensed under the Developer Tools model, which is a “per user” model. One license is required
for each person that accesses or uses the software.
You can download it
here
So there are no CAL limitations per se.

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) Pricing (2014)

I'd like to know what would cost to use SSRS on Azure. As Windows Azure SQL Reporting will be discontinued on 10/31/2014, I tried to find licensing options for SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) running on Windows Azure Virtual Machines (VM). I guess
I need to purchase a VM on Azure. But what other licenses are needed? Do I need a separate SQL Server licence if I already have Windows Azure SQL Database? Is there also a price for using SSRS on a VM?
Can please provide the alternatives with pricing or a link with this information.
Thank you.

hi Martin,
Base on my understanding, if we use predefined image (included sql server), we don't need use license , see this toturail (http://blog.aditi.com/cloud/hosting-sql-reporting-service-on-azure-virtual-machine/
). Or if we want install sql server on azure VM, we need purchase the license of sql server. If you only use SSRS on VM, I think you could only purchase slq server license. I recommend you refer to this page (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg430130.aspx#bkmk_new
) and this Compare licensing fees using the pricing calculator .
If I misunderstood, please let me know.
Regards,
Will
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