Re: Clustering for Performance
- From: "Geoff N. Hiten" <SQLCraftsman@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 14:54:43 -0500
I second what Andrew said.
Scale-out computing only works for certain workload profiles. SQL will
scale up to almost any real-world database problem. I would start a project
like this by determining the service level requirements such as expected
workload, availability requirements, budget, in-house skills, etc. Then I
would build a solution based on the actual business requirements. After
all, your company could care less how you build the system as long as it
meets its service requirements.
I understand the trepidation you face when designing such a large-scale
system. There is nothing worse than a brand new database system that is
just a little bit too small or slow. Given the likely cost of your system,
getting a good consultant on board early before some irrevocable decisions
are made will save money, time, and frustration.
--
Geoff N. Hiten
Senior Database Administrator
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
"Andrew J. Kelly" <sqlmvpnooospam@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23GTouptFGHA.752@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> SQL 2005 has lots of performance enhancements among other things. Just
> because it does not work like RAC does not mean it can not scale or handle
> large workloads. I just finished working on a system that was doing over
> 25K batch requests per second with upwards of 1000 concurrent (active and
> real connections) and it was hardly breaking a sweat. Please don't make
> any decisions based on appearance or misconceptions.
>
> --
> Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
>
>
> "Richard" <Richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:427BB31F-57CA-43A9-965C-E5F18196D696@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Thank you Geoff and Andrew for you swift responses.
>>
>> We are actually looking for a consultant to come in and help with this.
>> However I am just doing some ground work beforehand.
>>
>> I was hoping that SQL Server 2005 would give us some performance
>> improvements (such as true Load Balancing like Oracle Real Application
>> Clusters), but the improvements over 2000 seem to be mostly for failover
>> rather than scaling.
>>
>> Thanks again for your input
>>
>> Richard
>>
>> "Andrew J. Kelly" wrote:
>>
>>> Richard,
>>>
>>> Try not to take this the wrong way but if you are asking questions like
>>> these and need to implement a system that large you are probably a bit
>>> over
>>> your head. I suggest you seriously consider hiring a consultant who has
>>> been thru things like this before. Quite honestly there aren't many
>>> people
>>> who have dealt with systems that large. And if not done correctly it
>>> will
>>> almost certainly turn belly up and die when you even get close to that
>>> many
>>> users. That said here are a few comments. One is I doubt you will really
>>> have 40K concurrent users especially since SQL Server only allows
>>> 32,767<g>.
>>> Even with heavy use web based apps you rarely have as many concurrent
>>> connections as you would think. And if you are talking anywhere near
>>> this
>>> amount you are talking some serious hardware to support it. As I
>>> mentioned
>>> in another post Clustering is not a load balancing option. Only one node
>>> at
>>> a time has control over a specific disk resource in the cluster. So even
>>> with Active / Active (or more correctly Multi-Instance) you can't share
>>> a
>>> database since it resides on only one disk resource. You can't design a
>>> system like this in a newsgroup and if you try you will fail. It
>>> requires a
>>> very careful and well laid out plan to implement a large scale database
>>> application.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
>>>
>>>
>>> "Richard" <Richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>> news:A115E5ED-8801-4142-B921-FD25665FE3C0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> > Hello All. I need to set up quite a large SQL System 2005 system that
>>> > needs
>>> > to deal with 40,000 concurrent users, and one of the tables will
>>> > contain
>>> > blob
>>> > data. 40,000 users throwing around Mb's of data at the same time
>>> > worries
>>> > me a
>>> > little bit!
>>> >
>>> > My question is to do with Database Clustering and Mirroring. From what
>>> > I
>>> > can
>>> > see, there is still no load-balancing with SQL Server 2005, so does
>>> > this
>>> > mean
>>> > even in a clustered environment I am still basically only using a
>>> > single
>>> > database server? I have seen many posts that tell me that clustering
>>> > is
>>> > ONLY
>>> > for failover and not for performance. I understand that with
>>> > Active/Passive
>>> > this is the case, but how about Active/Active? If I can set up
>>> > Active/Active
>>> > (2 nodes? 4 nodes? 8 nodes? how many are possible?) with a SAN and NOT
>>> > have
>>> > failover implemented (can I turn failover off?) then would I have a
>>> > load
>>> > balanced environment? I could then have all nodes running up to 100%
>>> > (because
>>> > I don't have to worry about the failover) and therefore give me a
>>> > dramatic
>>> > increase in performance compared with using a single server?
>>> >
>>> > If I can do this then I can set up 2 identical clusters and an extra
>>> > server
>>> > for the witness, and use database mirroring for failover? Of course I
>>> > understand that mirroring will decrease performance on the clusters.
>>> > But
>>> > would this give me a super-fast database system that might cope with
>>> > what
>>> > I
>>> > need?
>>> >
>>> > Also, I am thinking about taking the blob data of of the database and
>>> > create
>>> > a new database that just deals with the blobs. How would this affect
>>> > my
>>> > clustered/mirrored environment?
>>> >
>>> > Thanks
>>> >
>>> > Richard
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
.
- References:
- Re: Clustering for Performance
- From: Andrew J. Kelly
- Re: Clustering for Performance
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