Archive for the ‘SQL Server’ Category

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Is the Big Data Market Growing by Billions? You Bet!

January 28th, 2013
Posted by: admin

 

By Laurie Head
AIS Network Vice President

Big data, big data, big data.  It may sound like an overused buzzword of the day, but it’s an incredibly important phenomenon that will have a lasting impact well into the future as large enterprises – particularly health care, banking, retail and educational organizations – focus their operations around developing more sophisticated big data tools and technologies to collect, manage and analyze large information sets.

Goodbye, filing cabinets. Online storage is a convenient, collaborative and flexible solution to creating and managing a centralized, secure data store.

Big data is a fast growing market, and it has enormous potential to transform your organization (as it simultaneously transforms your customers, partners and competitors).  Just how big is the big data market?  Well, according to a recent report by Transparency Market Research, the global big data market was worth around $6.3 billion last year.  The projections are staggering, however.   Projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of about 41 percent, the big data market will be worth $48.3 billion by 2018.  The research firm said that North America will be responsible for roughly 55 percent of the market through 2018, followed by Europe.

What is driving this market growth?  Well, mostly, unstructured data.  Conventional database management tools just don’t cut it when it comes to unstructured data, so better tools are required.  “The exponential growth in the quantum of big data is leading to the development of advanced technology and tools that can manage and analyze this data,” confirms Transparency Market Research.

IDC industry research also supports the healthy growth of big data.   IDC projects that the global market for big data technology and services will expand at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 32 percent between 2012 and 2016.  Roughly speaking, that’s seven times faster than the information and communication technology market.  IDC indicates that by 2016, we can expect to see revenue from the big data sector near $24 billion.

Unquestionably, big data is not just the trend of the moment.  It’s here to stay.  Companies will continue to capture, analyze and store enormous volumes of data.  According to The McKinsey Quarterly, “In 15 of the U.S. economy’s 17 sectors, companies with more than 1,000 employees store, on average, over 235 terabytes of data—more data than is contained in the U.S. Library of Congress.”

It’s becoming increasingly clear that businesses that succeed in managing these enormous information sets, while grasping fully how to find value in them, will improve their ability to make strategic decisions and enhance their customer service.  That’s a likely recipe for more business expansion and revenue growth.

So, what does this mean for the hosting industry and AIS Network?

The big data technology and services industry represents a global opportunity for companies like ours, not to mention job seekers with the right industry domain expertise.  Increasingly, the spotlight will be on the hosting industry’s ability to host these new database technologies successfully and provide secure, reliable, easy-to-use online storage for massive amounts of data – much of it quite sensitive.

Because most of our clients have stringent security and compliance requirements tied to SOX, PCI, HIPAA and FISMA, they use our online storage for their big data needs.  Rather than choosing to store their data on physical, local storage devices, most have opted to store it to a secure, remote database in the cloud that may be accessed via the Internet.

Cloud storage is rapidly becoming the go-to solution for managing and analyzing big data.  It eliminates the need for unsecure physical storage devices and allows authorized employees, partners and vendors ready access to the data.  It’s a convenient, collaborative and flexible solution to creating and managing a centralized, secure data store.   Let us know if you’d like to learn more about online storage.

Are you interested in learning more about big data technologies and tools?  Check out this conference, Big Data DevCon, which is scheduled to take place in Boston this spring.

Happy data crunching!

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Why Email Archiving?

August 3rd, 2012
Posted by: admin

 

By Laurie Head
AIS Network Vice President

Why email archiving?  Well, from the knowledge management perspective, valuable information is contained within our everyday email conversations, and yet that vast knowledge repository is typically not documented or stored using any formal means or framework.  Email archiving solves this problem, especially if it is designed with simple yet robust search capabilities.

email archiving

Email archiving addresses legal readiness and regulatory compliance needs, among other business requirements.

However, information archiving also addresses several key business requirements, particularly for enterprises.  To start, consider:

  • legal discovery readiness
  • regulatory compliance
  • email storage optimization

Being prepared for legal discovery and regulatory events means knowing where data is stored and being able to collect, search, and retrieve that data in a short period of time.

Organizations must also be able to establish and enforce policies, which reflect specific regulatory and geographic market requirements that align with internal information governance strategies. When managed improperly, exposure to legal and compliance risks can be significant and challenge an organization’s ability to defend its processes. This can lead to costly fines, guilty verdicts and damaged reputations.

Also, keep in mind that because regulations mandate that data must remain in its original state (native format), robust search capabilities are needed.  An archive provides a centralized, searchable repository that provides end users with access to historical information.  We believe that this access should be simple and intuitive, with a familiar user experience that fits existing work habits and enables greater productivity.

Finally, an information archive should address all of these requirements while also supporting the dual IT objectives of centralizing email storage and reducing the cost and management complexities of exploding data volumes — both within managed systems as well as in the wild.

AISN has recently introduced a new cloud-based offering for enterprise email archiving — one that has a variety of attractive features, especially if you need to meet high compliance standards.  AISN’s next generation email archiving, Proofpoint Enterprise Archive™, offers a proven email archiving solution architected explicitly for the cloud.  It features ultra-rapid parallel email search capabilities for discovery, DoubleBlind Encryption™ as the industry’s only email archiving solution to secure against hacking or legal challenges, and unlimited storage with straightforward flat-fee pricing.

Read more about our new email archiving solution on our site’s email archiving page; it’s also briefly highlighted in our disaster recovery section.  Because we price email archiving on a case-by-case basis, you won’t find a pricing guide, so please be sure to contact us for a free quote.

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Private Cloud Success Trends Upward

July 17th, 2012
Posted by: admin

 

By Laurie Head
AIS Network Vice President

How successful are private clouds, anyway?

That’s the question asked by a recent research report from Information Week.  The survey reveals that most companies with private clouds in place are pleased with the results and are experiencing heightened efficiency and lower costs.

I find this report particularly interesting, since we’re building more and more private clouds — and particularly SharePoint private clouds — every day.  While it’s not entirely clear to me how many of the companies surveyed are hosting their private cloud with a hosting provider or building their private cloud on premise, I think that the takeaways are broadly applicable.

Network Computing editor Mike Fratto, who wrote the 66-page report, said in his abstract:

The big takeaway? Those with private clouds experience more efficient use of hardware and superior scalability and reliability, and they make better use of IT’s time.  These are all measurable benefits that can make your IT department shine in the eyes of users and the CFO.  Those with private clouds also report success in lowering capital and operational costs and total cost of ownership.

There are some keys to success, though:  Have a well-thought-out migration plan. Make sure new software can leverage the scaling and reliability features of your private cloud, and be prepared to train employees on the new systems. They’ll love you for it, and you’ll get better results.

A majority of the 414 IT professionals surveyed said they aren’t running private clouds yet.  However, 21 percent of respondents said they have private clouds in place, and 30 percent more said they’re beginning private cloud projects.  Of the respondents with private clouds, 72 percent described their implementations as “very successful” or “a complete success.” Another quarter said they were “somewhat successful,” while only 1 percent chose “somewhat unsuccessful.”  Most reported having successfully lowered capex and opex.

The report digs deeper into cloud expectations, cloud costs, cloud maintenance, challenges, obstacles, vendor choices, best practices, keys to success and more.  You can download the report here.

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What Is Big Data and Why Is It Becoming Bigger Data?

July 12th, 2012
Posted by: admin

 

By Julia Uglietta
Associate, Marketing and Sales

Big data is a consequence of the new world of technology that we have created, where everything is monitored and measured at an increasingly fast rate.  All of the resulting data then exceeds the processing and storage capacity of traditional database systems.  The term “big data” is used to describe sets of data so great and intricate that they need assistance from data management tools in order for people to be able to use the data effectively.

Big Data

Cloud-based big data is rapidly becoming the wave of the future.

Big data can be found in many industries that touch everyone’s life in some way or another such as healthcare, human relations, science and finance.  But most of all, the federal government wrestles with big data routinely.  Medicare claims, financial records, video and “sensor” records represent just some of the big data that the federal government deals with every day.

Big data to the federal government, though, may be different than big data to an organization with fewer than 100 employees. What is considered big data, as opposed to just data, depends upon the organization managing it. Some might be able to handle hundreds of terabytes or even multiple petabytes, while some might only be able to manage hundreds of gigabytes.  It all depends on what an organization is prepared to handle.

Big Data Is Becoming Bigger Data

Faster than we can count, big data is becoming bigger data.

According to the Forbes article “Best Practices for Managing Big Data,” the average organization will grow their data by 50 percent in the coming year and overall corporate data will grow by 94 percent.  IDC pegs the value of big data at $16.9 billion by 2015.

The myriad devices in use today are contributing heavily to the growth of big data. Between mobile phones, laptops, sensors, RFID tags and smart meters, the new technology devices we use today are bringing in more data than ever before.  Not surprisingly, the majority of big data is duplicated or synthesized data. So, just as large masses of data are being recorded daily, copied and stored data is also growing exponentially – and by the second.

Managing data is no longer an option for most organizations.  Rather, it has become a requirement.  However, without the proper data management tools, analyzing the data to gather business insights is an enormous challenge.

Big Data and the Cloud

That’s where the cloud comes in.  Cloud computing, along with the tool of virtualization, is rapidly becoming the best way to manage big data. By virtualizing data, you are reducing the data footprint and centralizing the management of the data set – ultimately making big data smaller.  Virtualization is key when it comes to opening up more affordable data management options and reducing the costs associated with data storage.

The cloud, with its clusters of servers, readily offers scalability and flexibility for processing all that big data. The increase in processing capacity for cloud-based big data saves both time and money.  When big data applications are based in the cloud, a broader range of users within an organization can run mammoth big data infrastructures more quickly and efficiently.  Moreover, in the cloud, organizations can run their big data operations at a fraction of the cost of doing it in-house.

Big data is simply becoming unavoidable.  However, with this growing challenge, comes many new opportunities.  Cloud-based data management tools and techniques are being developed and automated every day to meet the unique needs of millions of customers around the world.

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Slow SharePoint Server? If your SharePoint Loads Slowly, This May Be Why.

July 9th, 2012
Posted by: admin

 

By Terry Engelstad
MCP, MCSE, CCNA, MCDBA, MCTS, MCITP
AIS Network Operations Manager

Is your SharePoint Server running slow?

Recently, a client emailed to say that he was noticing large slowdowns in connecting to their SharePoint server at AISN.  It seems to be happening nightly and intermittently throughout the day, he said.  Specifically, his issues were:

  1. SharePoint content loads slowly
  2. Uploading/ downloading from SharePoint is impossible (speeds come to a crawl at less than 5KBps)
  3. Remoting in to the SharePoint server is very slow

He asked what could be causing a slow SharePoint Server and SharePoint SQL Server.  Here’s the problem in his case.

The servers, in general, are starving for memory.  The hypervisor on which they reside (XYZ1) has only 74 MB of free memory.  Microsoft recommends not dropping below 2 GB of free memory on a hypervisor.

See the image below for XYZ1 (real names changed to protect client).

Slow SharePoint

As I explained to our client, the server “SharePoint” has 0 free memory and is warning that it needs more.  It looks like the vast majority of the memory on SharePoint is being consumed by w3wp.exe – IIS Application Pools. This would certainly contribute to slow web page rendering.  And with 0 free memory, anybody who remotes into it will take more memory away from the Application Pools, thereby making it slower.

In our client’s case, the server “SharePointSQL” is grossly overtaxed.  I count 68 databases defined and live.  This is way, way too much for a SQL Server with only 8 GB of memory.  The Microsoft recommendation is 8 GB of memory for a lightly used SharePoint Foundation Farm and 16 GB for a lightly used SharePoint Server Farm.

This level of memory, combined with the number of databases, will create very small page caching (perhaps not even caching at all).  This will seriously degrade the speed of uploading documents.

As you may or may not know, SharePoint stores all documents as Binary Large Objects (BLOBs).  In order to properly convert, for example, a Word document to a BLOB, it must cache the entire uploaded document somewhere before it can go through the conversion to a BLOB. So again, small or non-existent cache, means real slow upload and download times, among other slownesses.

In this case, adding more memory is the solution to a slow SharePoint Server.   However, a SharePoint private cloud would be an ideal approach – one that allows for the flexibility and scalability this client needs to accommodate growth smoothly.

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SharePoint Users: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Solves Common Business Challenges

June 29th, 2012
Posted by: admin

 

By Jay Atkinson
AIS Network CEO

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 is here now.  How much do you know about it?

If you’re using Microsoft SharePoint 2010 or Microsoft SharePoint 2010 for Internet Sites or if you manage big data, then it’s likely that you are familiar with SQL Server.  This newest version of Microsoft’s premier enterprise database management system has numerous new (and quite powerful) features over the previous release, 2008 R2.

In fact, there are so many noteworthy improvements over 2008 R2 that it would take quite a long time to blog about them all.  Rather, let’s just examine how this new version helps you solve some basic business challenges effectively.

Why use SQL Server 2012?  As the foundation to the cloud-ready information platform, SQL Server 2012 will help businesses of all sizes unlock breakthrough insights across the organization as well as build solutions quickly and extend data from server to private or public cloud — all backed by advanced capabilities for mission critical confidence.

Not only does SQL Server 2012 help improve customer management, but it also may help you face a number of common challenges.  Let’s look at five:

SQL Server 2012

But how do you know if you need SQL 2012?  Many organizations are 24×7 operations.  They may have a global presence too.  But they all have one very important quality in common:  they cannot afford downtime.  Does this describe you?  If so, ask yourself some of these questions:

  • How is your current database supporting your needs?
  • Is the performance of your current database where you need it to be?
  • Are you planning a move to the cloud?
  • Do you see yourself introducing new mission critical applications or planning migrations within three months to a year?
  • How are you viewing business insights for your organization?
  • Are you planning any major projects within the next three months to a year?

These are all good discussion points that we’d be happy to help you work through in your effort to discover whether or not SQL Server 2012 would benefit your organization.

Finally, I’d suggest three brief points for consideration:

1)  Mission Critical Confidence. SQL Server 2012 enables mission critical performance and availability at low TCO.  Consider that it offers:

  • A new integrated high availability and disaster recovery solution
  • Advanced performance speeds
  • Built-in encryption capabilities help protect confidential information without changes to the application

2)  Breakthrough Insight. Use SQL Server 2012 to unlock new insights with pervasive data discovery across the organization.  With SQL Server 2012, you can:

  • Empower business users to create visually rich dashboards or reports across heterogeneous data sources
  • Activate managed self-service BI, which easily balances an employee’s need for rich information and collaboration with IT’s need to manage the safety and confidentiality of information

3)  Cloud on Your Terms. SQL Server 2012 is useful in enabling you to create business solutions quickly – on your terms – across servers to private or public clouds. You’ll like that you can:

  • Easily move applications across on-premises and cloud with unlimited virtualization (available through SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition) and license mobility
  • Extend data across on-premises and the cloud

Are you aware of the significant improvement Microsoft has made to the licensing model for SQL Server 2012?  We’ll cover that topic in a future blog.

In the meantime, to learn more about how Microsoft SQL Server 2012 can help you stay productive and reduce costs, please just contact our office.  We’re happy to help.

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Choosing a Hosting Provider: 20 Questions to Ask Yourself

May 26th, 2012
Posted by: admin

By Laurie Head
AIS Network Vice President

Choose a provider based on its ability to provide a cost-effective architecture and high-quality customer experience for your envisioned use case.

—Gartner, Inc., “Magic Quadrant for Web Hosting and Hosted Cloud System Infrastructure Services”

So, you’ve decided to outsource your hosting.  How do you choose a provider?  It’s a bit tricky, so think carefully.

Your IT is mission-critical and that’s why selecting the right hosting provider is crucial to your business’ success.  There are a number of key considerations to keep in mind when you are evaluating a hosting provider as a potential IT partner for your organization.

Peace of Mind

Okay, this photo may be a little over the top, but you get the point. Price isn't everything. Confidence and peace of mind is. Choose the right hosting provider, and you'll rest easy.

Keep in mind that the relationship you have with the IT provider you invest in and work with will be an intimate one, so it’s important that you’re comfortable will their ability to deliver “mission-critical confidence” on multiple levels.

Ask yourself:

  1. How long has the company been in business?  Will it be around in five years?
  2. Is the company profitable and financially sound?
  3. What is the company’s reputation for customer service and which experts will be on your business account team?
  4. Are they actively listening to you and working with you to understand your specific requirements?
  5. Do they provide unlimited 24x7x365 support or is it fee-based?
  6. Have they gone through the SSAE 16 audit and are they certified?
  7. What is the quality of the company’s data center? Its infrastructure? Its networking?
  8. What type of security will they provide and are they capable of installing patches quickly when faced with a security threat?
  9. What type of hardware will be used to host your business?
  10. Do they actually deliver everything that they guarantee (uptime, reliability, etc.)?
  11. Do they offer a range of hosting services that will meet all your needs?
  12. What are their capabilities for developing a disaster recovery program?
  13. Do they support the compliance standards that are important to your business?
  14. Are they actively investing in upgrading and growing their infrastructure?
  15. Are they actively investing in new product offerings and services?
  16. What monitoring portal do they offer their customers?
  17. What are their backup and reporting policies?
  18. Are they helping you to understand fully the costs, including any “fine print” items?
  19. Are they committed to helping you grow your business and your brand?
  20. Will you be able to sleep at night with 100% confidence that your IT infrastructure is in good hands?

If you are not asking the right questions, you will not get the specific information you need to make an informed decision about your hosting solution. Once you’re confident that you have greater knowledge about the hosting provider, you can move to the next phase, which includes getting a quote that you understand and checking the company’s references.

In the end, is “price” what counts?  No, your hosting provider selection should be not solely based upon the pricing quote but rather based upon a unique combination of features and services offered at a price that’s right for your business.

Remember, this is a mission-critical decision that you need to feel good about, and the hosting provider you choose should make you feel 100% confident.

Need help defining your technical criteria for hosting?  Having a tough time writing an RFP?  Let us know.  We’ll be glad to lend a hand.

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SQL Server Virtualization and Why It May Not Be a Good Idea

April 19th, 2012
Posted by: admin

By Terry Engelstad
MCP, MCSE, CCNA, MCDBA, MCTS, MCITP
AIS Network Operations Manager

It’s very tempting to move Microsoft SQL Server instances to a virtualized environment, especially now that virtualization has become more sophisticated.

Theoretically, reducing the number of physical machines that you have while saving money by cutting your power, maintenance and licensing costs, may seem like the way to go.  But, in a production environment, why may virtualizing a SQL Server not always be a good idea?

The problem is not the hypervisor.  The problem is not the big, fast disk.  The problem is resource contention.  All database management systems work better when you give them their own resources.  More memory, more central processing unit (CPU), more disk – it doesn’t matter.  The bottom line is:  Just throw dedicated resources at a database management system (DBMS) and it will work better.   While the virtual machines (VMs) run very well, there is likely going to be a noticeable difference between a VM and a physical machine.

The problem with virtualizing a DBMS goes to the very purpose of virtualization – attempting to reduce resources in order to reduce costs.  The main retort from both Microsoft and VMWare about getting around reducing resources is that they have built in the ability to “share” resources – sharing CPU, sharing memory, sharing disk.  Herein is the problem for databases.  They don’t play nicely in the sandbox.  They don’t share well.  They want their own resources.

So, what do you do?  Well, first understand the limits of virtualization and choose your virtualization instances wisely.  Remember, there is no absolute solution to virtualizing SQL Server.  The best you can hope for is a compromise.  And the best way to compromise is to continue to try to isolate SQL Server instances.  Over-allocating resources (CPU, memory, disk) in a contentious situation will make an already bad situation worse, so don’t over allocate.  In short, don’t fall for “shared resources.”

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Virtual or Physical? Data Storage Configurations Using SQL Server

April 3rd, 2012
Posted by: admin

By Terry Engelstad
MCP, MCSE, CCNA, MCDBA, MCTS, MCITP
AIS Network Operations Manager

On a data storage configuration project involving Microsoft SQL Server, a colleague asked me:

We need 700GB of storage, which must be expandable by 10X.  We will be using Metalogix to externalize the 700GB of content.  Metalogix puts markers in SQL pointing to the storage.  Since the data is not actually residing in SQL, can we virtualize the Web front end (WFE), app server, and SQL server, and have the storage be in the AIS Network storage area network (SAN)?

Well, SQL Server 2008 introduced a feature called FileStream. This feature allows SQL Server to store data in an unstructured format outside of the database management system in the file system of the underlying operating system.

Data storage AIS Network

Data storage configurations require thoughtful planning.

This feature is generally used only when the objects which SQL Server needs to access are 1) huge and 2) need very fast READ access.

FileStream puts these objects in the file system just as you would save a Word document.  By doing so, the same set of problems exists as if these files were Word documents on your own hard drive.  They must be backed up separately from the databases.  They can be deleted either accidentally or intentionally.  They are exposed to disk corruption just as any other file would be.  Unless encrypted, their contents are viewable.

So to answer the question, yes, the data could be virtualized.  After all, it’s just files on a hard disk.  Is there an expectation of high performance?  700 GB (or 10 x 700 GB) far exceeds my heuristic, which says it should be physical, not virtual.  Therefore, the fact that it is externalized does not change my recommendation that it be a physical machine.

The follow-up question was:

Can we have a virtual machine (VM) WFE, VM app server, physical SQL server, with storage in the SAN?  If so, what size drive do we need in the SQL server?

The fact that data is stored externally really doesn’t matter.  My concern is the amount of activity going back and forth thru a virtualized environment.  If there are a lot of reads, a lot of writes, or a lot of both, then that’s a lot of traffic which could potentially affect other virtual machines  in the environment.

So, yes, you can have a VM WFE, a VM app server, and a physical SQL server with storage in a SAN.  This is exactly what one of our clients has.  The physical SQL server would need enough disk space for the operating system and supporting application software – probably no more than 120 GB, and perhaps less. The drives on the SAN would get mapped to the physical server and would be connected directly via fiber optic cabling (very good performance, no startup problems) or via iSCSI (using copper Ethernet cables with possibly delayed start).

What configurations work for you?  Let me hear from you below.

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SharePoint and SQL Server: Give It Memory

March 15th, 2012
Posted by: admin

By Terry Engelstad
MCP, MCSE, CCNA, MCDBA, MCTS, MCITP
AIS Network Operations Manager

If you are not familiar with how SQL Server works, you should know that it does, in fact, use memory for caching of data.  If you don’t give it enough memory, then it won’t cache enough data.  If you don’t cache enough of the right data, then you must go to disk to get it.  If you have to go to disk to get it, then you are making excessive trips to the SAN to retrieve data, thereby reducing the overall efficiency to everybody on the SAN.

I’ve done a couple hundred installations of SharePoint, and I am definitely a believer in “more is better.”   When it comes to SharePoint, you absolutely must give it memory – and lots of it.  You cannot get away with shorting memory and disk space.

If you really want to tick off a customer, take a SharePoint Site that has a reasonable amount of traffic and start reducing the amount of memory SQL Server has to work with.  See how long it takes for that customer to start complaining.  It won’t take long.

 

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