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Yes, You Can Have a SQL Server Cluster in VMware without Raw Device Mapping

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As companies look to move SQL Server to VMware environments, they soon face the challenge of how to provide high availability protection. The problem is that Windows Server Failover Clustering requires shared storage, so in VMware environments you need to use Raw Device Mapping to give VMs direct access to the SAN. RDM limits your ability to use important VMware features such as vMotion, snapshots, and Virtual Consolidated Backup.

A simple solution is to add SANLess clustering software, such as SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition, to your WSFC. It uses efficient block level replication to synchronize local storage to appear to WSFC as a shared disk without the need for RDM. You get high availability protection without sacrificing VMware features, flexibility or performance.

I discussed this easy strategy and provided a brief demonstration in a recent webinar:

High Availability for SQL in VMware without Raw Device Mapping (On Demand Recording)

You may also be interested in viewing the following Clustering 101 webinar hosted by Microsoft Cluster MVP, Dave Bermingham:

Clustering 101 Webinar: VMware Guest Based High Availability Clusters – Ways to Protect SQL and Maintain Flexibility
(On Demand Recording)

Press Release: SIOS DataKeeper SANLess Clustering Software is Now Microsoft Azure Certified and Available in the Azure Marketplace

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Award-winning software provides high availability and disaster protection  for important applications in Azure.

SAN MATEO, CA – April 2, 2015 – SIOS Technology Corp. (www.us.sios.com), maker of SAN and #SANLess clustering software products, today announced that its SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition software is Microsoft Azure certified and now available in the Azure Marketplace. The new SIOS offering is the only Azure certified software that enables customers to create a SANLess high availability cluster in Azure using Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clustering.

By adding SIOS DataKeeper software to Windows Server Failover Clustering customers can quickly and easily help protect business-critical Windows environments from downtime and data loss in a cloud or a combination of physical, virtual, or hybrid cloud environment. Now, for the first time, applications depending on SAN-based Windows server failover clusters for protection can be moved to Azure and achieve the more comprehensive high availability protection they need.

“We are pleased that Microsoft has chosen to certify and include SIOS DataKeeper in the Azure Marketplace. By providing fast, convenient access to SIOS DataKeeper software, our Azure Marketplace offering enables customers to deploy their important applications such as SQL, SAP, and Oracle in Azure with the same high availability protection they have in traditional physical server environments,” said Jerry Melnick, COO of SIOS Technology.

“Products like SIOS DataKeeper are pivotal in the cloud transformation,” said Vibhor Kapoor, Director of Product Marketing, Microsoft Azure. “By providing the essential high availability protection for critical applications that enterprises need, SIOS and Azure are enabling customers to take their journey to the cloud with confidence.”

Along with its Azure Marketplace offering, SIOS provides an informative, step-by-step guide to creating a high availability failover cluster to protect SQL Server in Azure IaaS written by Microsoft MVP, David Bermingham.

The SIOS DataKeeper offering in the Azure Marketplace is at: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/partners/sios-datakeeper/sios-datakeeper-8-bring-your-own-license/

About SIOS Technology Corp.

SIOS Technology Corp. makes SAN and #SANLess software solutions that make clusters easy to use and easy to own. An essential part of any cluster solution, SIOS SAN and #SANLess software provides the flexibility to build Clusters Your Way™ to protect your choice of Windows or Linux environment in any configuration (or combination) of physical, virtual and cloud (public, private, and hybrid) without sacrificing performance or availability. The unique SIOS #SANLess clustering solution allows you to configure clusters with local storage, eliminating both the cost and the single-point-of-failure risk of traditional shared (SAN) storage.

Founded in 1999, SIOS Technology Corp. (www.us.sios.com) is headquartered in San Mateo, California, and has offices throughout the United States, United Kingdom and Japan.

# # #

SIOS, SIOS Technology, SIOS DataKeeper, SIOS Protection Suite, Clusters Your Way, and associated logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of SIOS Technology Corp. and/or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contact

Beth Winkowski
Winkowski Public Relations, LLC for SIOS
Phone: 978-649-7189
Email: bethwinkowski@us.sios.com

Cloud Post: Epicure Selections Achieves High Availability and Disaster Recovery Protection for Critical SQL Server Applications with SIOS SANLess Clustering Software

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Epicure Selections is using SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition software to easily and cost-efficiently provide HA and DR protection for its business-critical SQL Server applications without the complexity of building out a remote DR site or purchasing costly SQL Server Enterprise Edition licenses. SANLess Clustering

Epicure, Canada’s leading direct sales company, sells healthy, easy-to-prepare food products through a network of over 16,000 consultants.

Epicure relies on two websites for its critical business operations. Its public website provides product, company, and consultant enrolment information to customers and people interested in becoming a consultant. The internal website provides consultants with important product information and enables them to place orders.

The company uses two instances of SQL Server Standard Edition—one for each website running on a single server. “Our websites are vital to our business,” said Russell Born, Senior Network Infrastructure Administrator at Epicure.

As the company grew and expanded its products and services, the Epicure IT department needed to update and protect its business-critical websites from downtime. It decided to move both websites from a third-party hosted facility to its on-premises data center and Amazon Web Services. “The business is growing and we needed to ensure our website delivers an excellent user experience for our customers and consultants,” said Born.

As part of this update, Epicure wanted an efficient, cost-effective way to provide high availability and disaster protection for both websites while continuing to run them on two instances of SQL Server Standard Edition. “We didn’t want the added expense of moving to SQL Server Enterprise Edition if we could provide HA and DR with Standard Edition,” Born said.

Using SIOS SANLess clustering software, Epicure IT staff created a two-node cluster in an active-passive failover configuration that enables each SQL instance to failover independently. One cluster node is in the on-premises data center and the second node is in an instance of the AWS EC2 cloud. Epicure IT staff created the SIOS SANLess clusters and configured them using the software’s intuitive graphical user interface.

The SIOS software provides Epicure with an easy, cost-efficient way to provide HA and DR protection for its business-critical SQL Server applications without the complexity of building out a remote DR site or purchasing costly SQL Server Enterprise Edition licenses. “The SIOS software has allowed us to create a hybrid solution providing additional cost savings of running on-premises with the reliability and flexibility of running in the cloud,” said Born. “Knowing that a website outage will result in an automatic failover allows our IT Team to focus their attention on other priorities to strengthen our business.”

About the Author:

Jerry Melnick
COO, SIOS Technology Corp.

Jerry Melnick (jmelnick@us.sios.com) is responsible for defining corporate strategy and operations at SIOS Technology Corp., maker of SIOS SAN and #SANLess cluster software. He more than 25 years of experience in the enterprise and high availability software industries. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Beloit College with graduate work in Computer Engineering and Computer Science at Boston University.

February 17, 2015: Cluster MVP to Present at Silicon Valley SQL Server Group

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SIOS is proud to sponsor this month’s Silicon Valley SQL Server User Group meeting. If you’re in the area, I highly recommend checking out this month’s session featuring our own Senior Technology Evangelist & Cluster MVP Dave Bermingham: Deploying Highly Available SQL Server in Microsoft Azure IaaS.

Register Now

Location: Microsoft, 1065 La Avenida, Building 1, Mountain View, CA (map)
Date: Feb 17, 2014
Time: 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Session Abstract

Deploying Highly Available SQL Server in Microsoft Azure IaaS
Abstract: Microsoft Cluster MVP David Bermingham will be discussing Windows Azure High Availability options for SQL Server. SQL Server AlwaysOn AG and FCI still form the underpinning of SQL Server availability in Windows Azure, but there are a few things you need to know before you jump in with both feet. If you ever plan on deploying SQL Server in Windows Azure IaaS, this is the meeting you don’t want to miss.

About Dave Bermingham
Dave Bermingham is recognized within the technology community as a high availability expert and has been honored by his peers by being elected to be a Microsoft MVP in Clustering since 2010.  Dave’s work as director of Technical Evangelist at SIOS has him focused on evangelizing Microsoft high availability and disaster recovery solutions as well as providing hands on support, training and professional services for cluster implementations.

Dave hold numerous technical certifications and draws from over twenty years of experience IT, including work in the finance, healthcare and education fields, to help organizations design solutions to meet their high availability and disaster recovery needs. Dave has recently begun speaking on deploying highly available SQL Servers in the Azure Cloud and deploying Azure Hybrid Cloud for disaster recovery.

Check out Dave’s blog at www.ClusteringForMereMortals.com and follow him on twitter (@DaveBerm).

 

March 12, 2015: Microsoft MVP Presents High Availability and Azure at the New York City Metro SQL Server User Group

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SIOS is proud to sponsor the New York City Metro User Group’s March meeting. If you’re in the area, I highly recommend checking out this month’s session “High Availability and Azure for SQL Server” presented by Microsoft Cluster MVP and SIOS’ own Senior Technology Evangelist, Dave Bermingham.

Register Now

Location: Microsoft , 11 Times Square, New York, NY (NE Corner of 41st St and 8th Ave.)
Date: March 12, 2014
Time: 6:00 PM

Session Abstract

High Availability and Azure for SQL Server

Come and Join us for a presentation on SQL Server High Availability using Azure sponser by SIOS. Refreshments will be provided.

David Bermingham is recognized within the technology community as a high availability expert and has been honored by his peers by being elected to be a Microsoft MVP in Clustering since 2010. David’s work as director of Technical Evangelist at SIOS has him focused on evangelizing Microsoft high availability and disaster recovery solutions as well as providing hands on support, training and professional services for cluster implementations. David hold numerous technical certifications and draws from over twenty years of experience IT, including work in the finance, healthcare and education fields, to help organizations design solutions to meet their high availability and disaster recovery needs. David has recently begun speaking on deploying highly available SQL Servers in the Azure Cloud and deploying Azure Hybrid Cloud for disaster recovery.

Presentation:

  • Understand the concept of Azure Fault Domains and Update Domains in relation to SQL Server high availability in Azure IaaS
  • Learn how SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups and Failover Cluster instances can be deployed in Azure for High Availability
  • Learn how Azure’s Internal Load Balancer is used in AlwaysOn deployments for client redirection
  • Learn how Azure Hybrid cloud configurations can be used in Azure to provide both high availability and disaster recovery

About Dave Bermingham
Dave Bermingham is recognized within the technology community as a high availability expert and has been honored by his peers by being elected to be a Microsoft MVP in Clustering since 2010.  Dave’s work as director of Technical Evangelist at SIOS has him focused on evangelizing Microsoft high availability and disaster recovery solutions as well as providing hands on support, training and professional services for cluster implementations.

Dave hold numerous technical certifications and draws from over twenty years of experience IT, including work in the finance, healthcare and education fields, to help organizations design solutions to meet their high availability and disaster recovery needs. Dave has recently begun speaking on deploying highly available SQL Servers in the Azure Cloud and deploying Azure Hybrid Cloud for disaster recovery.

Check out Dave’s blog at www.ClusteringForMereMortals.com and follow him on twitter (@DaveBerm).