1. SQL Server performance tuning on Azure IaaS
Marco Obinu
SQL Server performance tuning on Azure IaaS

3. Who am I Advisory Engineer @ Softjam S.p.A.
Microsoft Certified Professional for SQL Server and SharePoint
SQL Saturday, PASS GIVC, SiD and so on
Geek to the bone 
@OmegaMadLab

4. Agenda Infrastructure as a Service: Why & When?
Microsoft best practices overview
Virtual machine sizing
Post-deployment optimization
Hints for automation

5. IaaS: Why & When?

6. IaaS: Why & When? Traditional IT IaaS PaaS SaaS APPLICATION HYPERVISOROS
RUNTIME
DATA
STORAGE
NETWORK
SERVERS
YOU MANAGE
Traditional IT
MANAGED BY VENDOR
APPLICATION
HYPERVISOR OS
RUNTIME
DATA
STORAGE
NETWORK
IaaS
YOU MANAGE
SERVERS
MANAGED BY VENDOR
APPLICATION
HYPERVISOR OS
RUNTIME
DATA
STORAGE
NETWORK
PaaS
YOU MANAGE
SERVERS
MANAGED BY VENDOR
APPLICATION
HYPERVISOR OS
RUNTIME
DATA
STORAGE
NETWORK
SaaS
SERVERS

7. IaaS: Why & When? SQL Server instance inside an Azure VM
Same SQL Server features available as on on-premises instances
You own full control over instance
Fast and agile deployment with templates
Pay-as-you-go or Bring Your Own License
Dev/Test
Lift and Shift
Disaster Recovery scenarios

8. Microsoft best practices

9. Overview

10. VM provisioning phase

11. Key components for a fast SQL Server VM
Governed by VM size
Optimization can make the difference!

12. Choose a storage type SSD - Premium Storage HDD - Standard Storage
Production environments – heavy workloads
99,9% SLA for a single VM if used on all disks
VM families DS, DSv2, ES, FS, GS, LS, etc.
Storage account limits:
50 Gbps bandwidth
35 TB for disks
10 TB for snapshots
Dev/test environments – light workloads
No SLA available for single VM
VM families VM A, Av2, D, Dv2, F, G, L, N, H, etc.
Storage account limits: KB
500 TB total capacity
Use Premium Storage Account with local replica (Premium LRS) deployed in the same datacenter used by the VM
Geo-replicated storage account (Standard GRS) partially supported  use SQL Server features to deploy geo-redundant solutions

13. Choose a VM family – Azure compute unit
Single core performance, referred to an A-family core
SKU Family
ACU/Core
Standard_A0 50
Standard_A1-4, Standard_A5-7, Standard_A1-8v2, Standard_A2m-8mv2
100
A8-A11
225*
D1-14, DS1-14
160
D1-15v2, DS1-15v2 *
Dv3, DSv3, Ev3, ESv3
* **
F1-F16, F1s-F16s
F2Sv2-F72Sv2
* **
G1-5, GS1-5, L4s-L32s * H * M **
* use Intel® Turbo technology to increase CPU frequency and provide a performance boost. ** Hyper-Threaded hosts (1 physical core = 2 vCpu)

14. Choose a VM family – VM size
Premium Storage VMs
Standard Storage VMs
VM families: DS, DSv2, DSv3, ESv3, FS, GS, etc.
Choose a size considering:
# of vCPU
RAM needed
# of data disks
Max IOPS and disk bandwidth
NIC performance
VM families: DS, DSv2, DSv3, ESv3, FS, GS, etc.
Choose a size considering:
# of vCPU
RAM needed
# of data disks
NIC performance
Minimum recommended size:
DS2 (2 vCPU – 7 GB RAM) for SQL Server Standard Edition
DS3 (4 vCPU – 14 GB RAM) for SQL Server Enterprise Edition

15. Choose a VM family – Storage subsystem
Premium Storage VMs
Standard Storage VMs
Managed disks, unmanaged disks
Fixed sizes with provisioned performance tiers
Minimum recommended sizing:
Min. 1 x P30 for datafile and TempDB
Min. 1 x P30 for logfile
Cache settings:
Read-only for datafile e TempDB
None for logfile
Managed disks  fixed size
Unmanaged disks  user defined size, up to 4 TB
Same unprovisioned performance, regardless of size
Recommended sizing:
Use striped disks up to the VM capacity
Cache set to “None” for every SQL disk type
Premium Disks
Size
IOPS
Throughput P4
32 GB
120
25 MB/s P6
64 GB
240
50 MB /s
P10
128 GB
500
100 MB/s
P15
256 GB
1100
125 MB/s
P20
512 GB
2300
150 MB/s
P30
1 TB
5000
200 MB/s
P40
2 TB
7500
250 MB/s
P50
4 TB
Standard Man. Disks
Size
IOPS
Throughput S4
32 GB
500
60 MB/s S6
64 GB
S10
128 GB
S15
256 GB
S20
512 GB
S30
1 TB
S40
2 TB
S50
4 TB
Stripe more disks with Storage Spaces
Columns = # of disks; interleave = 64KB (OLTP) or 256KB (DW)
Format volumes with 64 KB allocation unit size

16. VM provisioning phase - recap

17. Post deployment tasks

18. Post deployment – I/O optimizations
Avoid using OS disk to hosts databases, ERRORLOG and Default Trace  Move to additional data disks
Set default paths for databases and backups
Move MSDB, MODEL, TEMPDB:
ALTER DATABASE database_name MODIFY FILE ( NAME = logical_name , FILENAME = 'new_path\os_file_name' )
Move files on disks
Restart SQL Server instance
Move MASTER, SQL Server logs and Default Trace:
Stop SQL Server instance
Open SQL Configuration Manager and update startup parameters

19. Post deployment – I/O optimizations
Keep database size under control
Autogrowth = last chance   preallocate size
Disable Auto Shrink  causes huge I/O and increase index fragmentation
Assign privileges to SQL Server Service account
Perform volume maintenance tasks to enable Instant File Initialization  it works on data files only!!!
Lock Pages in Memory to limit SQL Server memory pagination to disk
Consider to enable Page Compression on tables and indexes
On SQL Server 2012 install at least SP1 CU10 or SP2 CU1 to fix IO issues

20. Post deployment – Backup to Azure
Consider to offload backups on a storage account

21. Post deployment tasks - recap

22. Post deployment tasks – additional tips 
Disable unwanted services (SSAS, SSRS)
Set max server memory to avoid memory contention with OS
Split TempDB into more data files
Consider using temporary disk for TempDB
Consider using specific trace flags if using SQL 2012/2014. Defaults:
-T1117 and -T1118 if you choose OLTP workload
-T1117 and -T610 if you choose DW workload

23. Automation

24. Automation PowerShell ARM Template dbatools.io
PowerShell Desired State Configuration
Azure Custom Script Extension

25. Usefull info… Official docs GitHub Azure Quickstart Templates
GitHub Azure Quickstart Templates
SQL Server optimized template
Optimize-SqlVmIaas PoSH script
Look for my social channels for updates
@OmegaMadLab

26. Q&A