Strategy to provide Availability and Scalability - SQL Server Replication
Scalability is the potential for the database to maintain performance goals while adapting to increased workloads. At the same time Availability is another important factor to keep up this scalability which involves scale-up strategies of upgrading hardware as well as scale-out strategies of adding additional machines and SQL Server database instances.
Both of these factors affect the performance tuning as and when the database is not tested with the upgrde of hardware or software on any SQL database. So talking about these analogies of enterprise computing to other areas of manufacturing execution and control opens up a whole new set of technologies, like virtualization and high-performance computing. When we talk about Virtualization which is a hot topic in the industry that will allow moving, replicating, and scaling the solution in a fast way that simply isn’t possible today. Talk about high-performance computing then GEO CLUSTERING is the first in the list to talk about, whereby it is controlled by set of hardware compatibility and specific set of software versions. You would agree that these technical advances sound tempting, there are still a lot of problems that need to be solved. For example, there’s a need for real-time operating systems and Windows to coexist on the same device. This can’t be done with current virtualization technology, because there’s currently no implementation that supports guaranteed interrupt delivery for a real-time Operating Systems.
This is where a new terminology comes into picture which is cloud-based infrastructure and services. SQL Server Data Services is a best example which is not simply a hosted SQL Server in the cloud. It’s a completely new structured data storage service in the cloud; designed for simple entities that are grouped together in containers and a very simple query, which allows direct access to these entities. The big advantage of SSDS is that it is a cloud-based solution that hides the details of replication, backup, or any other maintenance task from the application using it. By providing geo replication and using the huge data centers from Microsoft, it can guarantee virtually unlimited data storage and indestructible data.
I can say still this this cloud computing is still in its infancy and almost all vendors are busy building up their first generation of services in the cloud, the applicability of those services as an on-premise solution is often neglected to stay focused on one core competency. Before that take a look at Geo-Replication Performance Gains with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Running on Windows Server 2008 and to talk more on this here is the refernece from Technical rollup email - Microsoft.com Engineering Operations (MSCOM Ops), the team responsible for architecting and managing many of the most heavily trafficked Microsoft Web sites, recently documented substantial replication performance improvements for both push and pull subscriptions in Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 running on Windows Server® 2008—up to 100 times faster than Microsoft SQL Server 2005 running on Windows Server 2003. This paper provides IT pros with an in-depth look at the tests conducted by the MSCOM Ops team, insight into the results, and technical analysis of the enhancements to Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 that enable wide area network (WAN)–based geo-replication.