1. Upgrading to Microsoft SQL Server 2014
John Q Martin | Premier Field Engineer, SQL Server
Debbi Lyons | Senior Product Marketing Manager, Data Platform

2. Course Modules Upgrading to Microsoft SQL Server 2014
01 | SQL Server Upgrade Planning, Process and Tools
02 | Planning Your Upgraded SQL Server Environment
03 | Performing and Validating a SQL Server Upgrade

3. 02 | Planning Your Upgraded SQL Server Environment
John Q Martin | Premier Field Engineer, SQL Server
Debbi Lyons | Senior Product Marketing Manager, Data Platform

4. Module Overview What to Capture & How to Capture
How to Interpret Captured Data
Infrastructure Considerations

5. What and How to Capture

6. Deprecated Features Check for changes
SQL Server documentation covers features that are deprecated or discontinued
Breaking changes are also documented along with changes in SQL Server behavior
Backward Compatibility documented for each component

7. Capturing Data with SQL Trace

8. Analysis What to gather & analyze
There are so many different things that could be captured, from counters to settings
Work to the initial scope and catalogue the estate so that you know the scale of what you will be dealing with
Need to gather business information in addition to technical details of the existing system

9. Capturing Data with MAP Toolkit

10. Analysis
Why analyze?
There have been many changes in SQL Server since 2005/2008/2008R2
Systems are more complex and do not develop at the same rate as the data platform
Need to understand if there is any requirement to modify the database or application tier in order to maintain functionality

11. Analysis Areas to look at
Operating System Environment performance metrics
SQL Server Performance Metrics, configuration and feature use
Application Tier Performance Metrics & workload capture
Capacity planning and system lifecycle
Application owner details and business usage

12. Capturing Data with PAL

13. Analysis How to Analyze
Capture data over a wide period of time, multiple samples for the same period over a duration
Include notable events in capture, like month end processing etc.
Remember that maintenance periods are also part of a fully functional system even if the business does not see them

14. How to Interpret Captured Data

15. Interpretation Understand what is important to you
Each SQL Server implementation is unique, there will be different performance metrics that matter to you
How will your system grow over time, look at historical baseline for trends to project requirements
How has the business changed over time and what are the plans for the future

16. Infrastructure Considerations

17. Planning Use data from the Analysis stage
This will drive the sizing of the new system
Understand the needs of the business
Which teams will need to be involved in the cut-over
How long can they be without the system, this will help you decide on the actual migration approach
The data in the analysis phase of the project will drive the sizing of the new platform with regards to the final details of hardware and software versions that are to be used. It is important to understand the requirements with regards to not only the CPU, memory and storage utilisation but to understand the type of workload that is being hosted. Do you have a highly concurrent OLTP or data warehouse workload in which case more CPUs might be required than if it is a high throughout single threaded application that is being hosted.
With regards to the needs of the business, the analysis phase of the project will have identified the business owners of the applications involved that are hosted on the SQL Server instance(s) that are being upgraded. These are the people that will help you understand when and how long the system can be out of action for while the migration takes place. For example is it a system that can be taken offline for a period of time that would let you transfer multiple TB of data, or do you need to use another method such as pre-staging with a combination of full, differential and transaction log backups over a period of time leading up to the event?

18. Planning
CPU Sizing
Parallelism, this should be seriously looked at when consolidating an existing environment
Look a the utilization of the CPU on the source system, make sure that you factor in room for growth
Make use of the best processors you can get, sometimes it is better to go for a lower clock speed with more cache

19. Planning Memory Sizing
Take into account the PLE that you want for your environment, this will have a direct impact on the base load you will place on your IO sub-system
Leave room for growth, try to ensure that there are space DIMM slots for future upgrades
Understand which features you will be using, In-Memory OLTP will require memory that would otherwise be used for the buffer pool

20. Planning Storage Sizing
Identify the IOPS requirements, there are two main schools of thought. One is just give me x number of IOPS the other is give me x number of spindles
Understand the way in which the platform has grown over time to scale the storage system
What type of connectivity is best given the support skills that exist in the team?

21. Planning Local Storage - DAS
If making use of local storage, SSD or PCI-e Flash if you can, otherwise large cache on RAID controllers
Transaction Logs can be placed on spinning disk in certain circumstances, just make sure you have NV-Cache on the controller
What room for expansion is there?

22. Planning
SAN Storage
Central pool for storage, what are you likely to be sharing with
Buy now or expand in the future?
Intelligent SAN or Dumb SAN?

23. Planning Migration options
Detach/Attach or Backup and Restore, these are where you can do it all in one shot and is good for smaller systems or piecemeal migrations
Pre-staged using Full, Differential and Transaction Log Backups to minimize the data transfer
Mirroring up the versions, going from the lower to the higher version with automated failover of the application

24. Planning Migration options
How do you plan to migrate the application connectivity, for side-by-side migrations the server will change
Who do you need to assist you on the migration effort, application teams desktop support, helpdesk etc.

25. Communications
Users
What is the communication plan for notifying affected users ahead of time
Notifications within the team, keeping colleagues in the loop is important too
How do users contact you in the event of post-migration issues?