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

2. Meet Debbi Lyons Senior Product Marketing Manager, SQL Server
Microsoft Data Platform for Small and Medium Business
SQL Server Standard and Express Editions
Hybrid on-premises to Microsoft Azure data scenarios
15 years in the IT industry
Product marketing for a variety of SQL Server-based applications
Tools for SQL Server backup, security and performance
SQL Server upgrade

3. Meet John Martin | ‏@SQLServerMonkey
Premier Field Engineer, SQL Server
SQL Server Infrastructure
Focused on HA/DR and SQL Server Infrastructure
Working with Azure IaaS and PaaS systems
Over ten years in IT, eight working with SQL Server
Chalk & Talk, Training Workshop delivery and system health and performance reviews
Working with Finance, Government and Retail industry leaders
Presenting at community events, user groups and conferences

4. 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

5. Setting Expectations Target Audience
Microsoft SQL Server DBAs
Microsoft SQL Server Developers
Suggested Prerequisites/Supporting Material
Knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Features

6. Join the MVA Community! Microsoft Virtual Academy
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7. 01 | SQL Server Upgrade Planning, Process and Tools
John Q Martin | Premier Field Engineer, SQL Server
Debbi Lyons | Senior Product Marketing Manager, Data Platform

8. Module Overview Identifying Key Business Requirements
Migration Process Steps
Discussion on the Free Tooling available from Microsoft

9. Identifying Key Business Requirements

10. Why Upgrade? Supportability
SQL Server 2005 ends support in April 2016, additionally getting SQL Server staff with the skills to support older versions is more difficult.
SQL Server 2008 & 2008 R2 are now in the extended support portion of their lifecycle
Microsoft will not accept requests for warranty support, design changes, or new features during the Extended Support phase.

11. Why Upgrade?
Features
Many new features or existing features are enhanced in the new product.
SQL Server 2012 introduced Availability Groups, Columnstore Indexing, Failover Cluster Instance enhancements, FileTable and many more
SQL Server 2014 introduced In-Memory OLTP, Buffer Pool Extensions and Encrypted Backups, enhancing Columnstore and Availability Groups

12. Why Upgrade? Scalability
SQL Server 2014 Standard Edition can now address 128GB of RAM
Increased number of partitions for partitioned tables
Increased amount of compute that can be accessed with the different versions
Larger more complex and reliable configurations

13. 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

14. The Path Upgrade Paths - 2012 SQL 2000 SP4 SQL 2012 SP1 SQL 2005 SP4
SQL 2008R2 SP1

15. The Path Upgrade Paths - 2014 SQL 2000 SP4 SQL 2012 SP1 SQL 2005 SP4
SQL 2008R2 SP2

16. Migration Process Steps

17. The Process It’s a simple backup & restore right?
What might have been the case previously is not always the case now, systems have got bigger and more complex.
But we can just do it internally?
In some cases yes, but more often than not it will require interacting with the business now.
It is a project and should be treated like one!

18. The Process Important to understand whole system
With the more complex systems that are in place today, it is important to understand what relies on the database systems we manage.
Identify and work with business owners
By involving the business application owners you can leverage their expertise when it comes to testing and validating.

19. The Process Communication is key
Communicating when systems will be affected will manage business expectation about the impact.

20. Methods Side-by-side In-Place upgrade
This involves building a new system alongside the existing one and moving databases to it.
In-Place upgrade
Upgrading the existing software to the new version, without the need to move the databases.

21. Build & pre-production
The Process
Upgrading SQL Server requires effort
It is a multi-stage process that should be tackled in iterations feeding back into the process, flexing with what is discovered.
Scoping
Initial Analysis
Planning
In-Depth Analysis
POC & Testing
Build & pre-production
Commissioning
Testing
Documentation

22. Free Tooling from Microsoft

23. Tooling Many tools available
There are a large number of tools that are available for helping capture data and analyze it.
Two main areas that tools can help, analysis of existing infrastructure and benchmarking and testing new systems.

24. Tooling Free tools 01 | SQL Trace 06 | Best Practice Analyzer
02 | RML Utilities
07 | Database Upgrade Advisor
03 | Distributed Replay
08 | MAP Toolkit
04 | SQL Nexus
09 | PSSDiag Manager
05 | Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL)
10 | Dynamic Management Views/Functions

25. Tooling
Useful Tools
Relog – Great for decomposing Perfmon BLG files to get the counters you want into another format
logparser – Useful for performing analysis of log files and also changing the format of files.
Excel – De-facto software for analysis of data and generating pretty pictures for management.

26. Extracting counters from Perfmon logs with Relog

27. Tooling
MAP Toolkit
Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit – Solution Accelerator
Very good for discovery and data capture of existing infrastructure
Can be used to scan the network, cross domain, for systems
Excellent if you are looking to consolidate to a virtual infrastructure or migrate to Azure

28. Tooling Database Upgrade Advisor
Use to identify any issues that will need to be resolved prior to upgrading to the desired version of SQL Server
When analyzing SQL Server Reporting Services, you will need to run the tool locally to the instance
The SQL Server 2014 Upgrade Advisor is being enhanced to provide full support for SQL Server 2005

29. Tooling Best Practices Advisor
Performs a number of checks on the SQL Server components that are installed
Requires PowerShell remoting to be enabled
Use this tool in conjunction with KB for SQL Server 2012 and SQL Server 2014 configurations
Remember that a Best Practice might not be right for your environment

30. Tooling
PAL
Performance Analysis of Logs, free tool on Codeplex
Can be automated with PowerShell
SQL Trace
Use to capture workload for analysis and replay against other systems
Tried and tested with mature toolset for processing and working with the trace output

31. Tooling DMVs Built in Dynamic Management Views & Functions
Collect data about SQL Server such as buffer pool composition, file access patterns, connection and query details
Can be very low impact, though there are some functions that need treated carefully

32. Tooling SQLIO SQLIOSim
Storage Benchmarking tool that can be configured to stress test the storage sub-system with different IO workloads.
SQLIOSim
Storage Benchmarking tool that can be configured to simulate the IO patterns of a SQL Server Instance.

33. Summary Define what needs to be done Communicate Question yourself
Define the work (Scope) and quantify the success criteria and establish the process by which you intend to achieve it
Communicate
Working with the business and customer is always better than hiding from them
Question yourself
Don’t be afraid to re-visit and revise your objectives

34. Summary Use the right tools Repeatability is important
Build your own toolset from the available tools and become comfortable with them
Repeatability is important
Automate where you can with scripting to make tests and collections repeatable
Capture a wide variety of workload data that takes place on the server