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Upgrade to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
Introduction
Upgrading to SQL 2008 R2 is a costly venture. It can, however, have a positive effect on the TCO of
the database infrastructure. Organizations must assess the improvements of SQL 2008 R2 and
decide whether an upgrade is necessary and feasible.
• This solution set will cover SQL Server 2008 R2 from highlighting which organizations should consider an
upgrade, to functionality improvements, and planning up to implementation. It will help readers, considering
an upgrade to SQL 2008 R2, understand:
• Upgrade consideration. Which organizations Info-Tech recommends consider an upgrade to 2008 R2,
and which should avoid the release.
• Improved functionality. What has and has not been improved in 2008 R2, with specific focus on the
impacts of these changes to TCO for the organization.
• Time & effort. The effort organizations have spent on planning each aspect of the upgrade, and an
outline of what they did to make the upgrade go smoothly.
• Microsoft tools & resources. The tools and resources provided by Microsoft to aid with compatibility
and upgrade issues.
• Project management & closure. Tips and tricks for managing the project and budget, as well as issue
resolution and closure logs, budgeting, and project management tools.
Executive Summary
• Microsoft’s SQL Server 2008 R2 offering is largely unimproved from its predecessor, SQL Server 2008, but
should be considered by organizations with Software Assurance (SA), and those looking to lower the TCO of
third-party BI tools or implement BI without increasing their budget.
• Licensing has become more expensive in comparison to the schema available under SQL Server 2008 –
organizations that wish to continue using the unlimited licensing setup of SQL 2008 should stay with their
current setup, or move to SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition at $57,498.
• Consolidating multiple database instances to a single SQL server is the most common method of
consolidation amongst Info-Tech clients as it enables them to leverage greater hardware efficiency and
maximize licensing benefits; this is the simplest option when databases have similar security, manageability,
and compatibility requirements, provided hardware can sustain the required level of performance.
• As part of the Business Intelligence (BI) offering, Analysis and Reporting Services have both been drastically
improved, enabling the organization to lower TCO by improving scalability, productivity, and integration
with Microsoft Office.
• Planning for the upgrade process is much less intensive than other major infrastructure projects, such as a
data center move; however, Info-Tech recommends assembling a Steering Committee, Upgrade Team, and
Testing Team to facilitate the funding & approval, execution, and testing phases of the upgrade, respectively.
• Inventorying applications and developing an upgrade strategy were cited as the heaviest-effort areas of the
upgrade planning process by Info-Tech survey respondents, regardless of what version of SQL they were
upgrading from, highlighting the importance of these tasks for those organizations considering an upgrade.
• Once the upgrade is complete, take the time to process and resolve issues from the SQL Server Upgrade
Issue Resolution & Change Order Template, and conducting a project post-mortem debrief to ensure the
next upgrade goes smoother.
Roadmap
Understand the Differences
Assess the Opportunity
Planning
• SQL Server 2008 R2 is a full-release from Microsoft and carries one major
difference, which organizations must consider before committing to an
upgrade: licensing.
• The new licensing schema from Microsoft changes the way organization’s
are charged using Enterprise Edition in R2 vs. Enterprise Edition in 2008.
To maintain a licensing setup that allows for unlimited instances under a
single enterprise license, the organization must remain on 2008 or move to
R2’s Datacenter Edition at a cost of $57, 498.
Discovery
Determine the Benefits
Execution
• SQL Server 2008 R2 offers a greatly improved BI package, including
upgraded Analysis Services and Report Services capabilities.
Closure
• Organizations interested in BI, but lacking the budget to implement a thirdparty solution, may want to consider an upgrade of their SQL setup,
especially if Software Assurance is in place.
Only upgrade to 2008 R2 if the organization requires Business
Intelligence, or has Software Assurance
SQL Server 2008 R2 is a viable upgrade consideration for firms that have an SA agreement or require
BI functionality, but either lack the budget to implement third-party tools or are looking to dislodge
third-party tools in order to lower TCO.
Licensing
Do you have an
SA agreement?
Yes
Upgrade to 2008 R2
No
Business
Intelligence
Do you
currently have
a BI solution in
place?
Yes
Are you
interested in
lowering BI
costs?
No
Are you
interested in
implementing
BI?
Yes
Consider 2008 R2
No
Do Not Consider 2008 R2
Yes
Consider 2008 R2
No
Do Not Consider 2008 R2
18% of respondents, to a recent Info-Tech survey, cited moving away from SQL Server as a primary
reason for not upgrading their database; of those respondents, 43% are moving away from SQL in
favor of a SaaS deployment.
New compression features drastically improve TCO, but licensing
eats into the cost benefits; core availability remains unimproved
Storage
Availability
Scalability
Licensing
SQL 2008 offers a backup
with compression option that
was unavailable in SQL
2005. This new backup
option reduces the disk size
of backups by 20-60%,
resulting in a lower TCO for
organizations with hefty
storage costs.
SQL 2008 sees minimal
improvements in availability
over its predecessors, but
does bring to light some
improvements when
updating or patching a
current SQL setup. The
benefits associated with
availability are contingent on
the organization having
Windows Server 2008 in
place.
SQL 2008 provides support
for more processors and
memory to consolidate
multiple databases onto
more powerful hardware.
Less hardware results in
lower power consumption,
decreasing the TCO of the
servers and database. As
with availability, the benefits
associated with scalability
are contingent on the
organization having
Windows Server 2008 in
place.
Licensing for 2008 R2 has
been revised from its
predecessor, 2008.
Organizations currently
running 2008 with Software
Assurance can maintain
favorable licensing
conditions, but new adopters
will feel the sting of R2’s
licensing changes.
Backup with compression functionality cuts storage
requirements & costs by as much as 72%
Storage
Introduced in SQL 2008, Microsoft states backup with compression is capable of compressing
database backups by 20-60%. Actual compression rate may vary, though the following results have
been achieved.
SQL 2005 – 6 minutes compression time
3.5
3.5
GB
Original Database Size
Storage Reduction
Standard Backup
GB
Backup Database Size
SQL 2008/SQL 2008 R2 – 3 minutes compression time
3.5
Original Database Size
Storage Reduction
986
GB
Compression Backup
0%
MB
Backup Database Size
72%
Backup with compression saves the organization time and money as backups take less time and disk space,
resulting in operational cost savings on both fronts. If storage cost is a major concern for the organization, SQL
2008 relieves some financial pressure.
Do not look to 2008 R2 for significant availability improvements
Availability
SQL Server 2008 is similar to other Microsoft server products in that it adheres to the better
together mantra. When paired with Windows Server 2008, availability in SQL Server 2008 is much
more powerful than without. SQL Server 2008 R2, however, does not improve upon the availability
functionality of SQL Server 2008.
Database Mirroring
Log Shipping
Failover Clustering
Peer-to-Peer Replication
• Increases availability,
providing near-complete
database redundancy
during disasters or
planned upgrades.
• Does not require
proprietary hardware and
provides automatic client
redirection.
• Automatically backs up,
copies and restores
transaction logs on
standby servers.
• Reduces the load on the
primary server by using a
secondary server for readonly query processing.
• Provides server-level
redundancy on a certified
Microsoft Cluster Services
configuration.
• Enables seamless failover
capabilities by sharing disk
access between nodes and
restarting SQL on a
working node during
failure.
• Replicates changes at near
real-time while databases
handle primary
responsibilities.
• Protect against accidental
conflicts with SQL Server
2008 conflict detection.
SQL 2008 provides improved availability during updates as service packs and cumulative updates can be
applied using a “rolling update” methodology in clustered environments. This allows the organization to
apply patches first to passive nodes, then switch those nodes to active and re-apply the patch to the now
passive nodes, decreasing downtime to a matter of minutes.
SQL Server 2008 R2 offers scale-up & scale-out solutions, but
remains largely unchanged from 2005’s offering
Scalability
SQL Server 2008 R2 leverages underlying improvements from
Windows Server 2008 R2 to support database instances running
on larger hardware. Scaling up on more powerful hardware is a
common approach to addressing performance problems
associated with very large database instances.
SQL Server 2008 R2 builds upon previous capabilities to expand
a database instance across multiple servers rather than a single,
bigger server. Scaling out is a tradeoff between initial hardware
cost advantages and increased licensing costs.
Shared
Databases
SQL Server 2008 R2 supports the deployment
of read-only reporting databases through the
scalable shared database feature, allowing the
enterprise to scale the operational data on the
primary server.
Hot Add
CPU
Support has been added allowing for the
dynamic addition of CPUs to a running system.
CPUs can be added physically with new
hardware, logically via online hardware
portioning, or virtually through a virtualization
layer.
Peer-to-Peer
Replication
Scaling out a database through Peer-to-Peer
replication with SQL Server 2008 R2 supports
multiple read/write copies of the database
across physical servers through replication.
Hot Add
Memory
Releases of SQL prior to SQL Server 2005
supported dynamic memory allocation, but was
restricted to memory available at startup. This
limitation has been removed as of SQL Server
2005.
Service
Broker
More Cores
Windows Server 2008 R2 can now support 256
cores; 4x the previous limit of 64 cores.
Included in SQL Server 2008 R2, the Service
Broker supports message queuing, which can
be used to distribute database work across
multiple instances.
Be ready to spend more if you do not have Software Assurance;
R2’s Enterprise Edition licensing has changed
Licensing
Under the per processor licensing model, the organization can run up to four operating system
environments per license with 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition, resulting in a drastic TCO increase over
2008’s unlimited instances per processor licensing model.
SQL 2008 Enterprise Edition
SQL 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition
1 SQL License
Physical Server
Assuming 12 Virtualized SQL Instances
$24,999
47% of Info-Tech clients will remain
unaffected by licensing changes
3 SQL Licenses
Physical Server
Reduction Ratio
≤ 4:1 ≥
Assuming 12 Virtualized SQL Instances
$86,247
53% of Info-Tech clients will need
to consider Datacenter Edition
Organization’s requiring a licensing model similar to the 2008 Enterprise Edition setup of unlimited
virtualized instances should move to SQL 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition, the only SKU in the new
lineup that maintains the older licensing model while providing the same BI functionality.
If the enterprise requires ≤ 4 SQL instances, implement
Enterprise Edition; otherwise, implement Datacenter Edition
SQL 2008 Enterprise Edition
1 SQL License
Physical Server
$24,999
Unlimited SQL Instances
SQL 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition
3 SQL Licenses
Physical Server
$86,247
12 Virtualized SQL Instances
SQL 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition
1 SQL License
Physical Server
Unlimited SQL Instances
$57,498
SQL 2008 R2’s new
licensing schema requires
the organization to
thoroughly consider its
database setup in order to
ensure licensing spend is
optimized.
Organizations that require
less than 5 instances of
SQL should continue with
Enterprise Edition as
licensing changes do not
come into affect until the
number of instances
exceeds 4.
Organizations that require
more than 4 instances of
SQL should implement
Datacenter Edition to
optimize licensing spend.
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