Database Reference
In-Depth Information
You will need to consider how frequent these types of activities are and how much
impact they have on your SQL Server databases. If the impact is high, you will want to
include these activities in your workload modeling and testing. This will ensure that
your systems performance is still acceptable even while these important non-production
activities take place.
Tip
Don't forget to exclude your data files and log files from your antivirus (AV)
scanning. It can have a huge impact on performance, especially when real-time
AV scanning is used.
Producing a Baseline Performance Report
A performance baseline report is a useful tool for recording the outcomes of a
baselining and benchmarking exercise and to set expectations with project sponsors and
key stakeholders, such as DBAs and application owners. The performance baseline
report is the evidence that proves what the required system performance is and whether
systems will likely perform to expectations or not, based on the proposed design and
proposed infrastructure. This report captures the point in time before the systems were
virtualized and can be used in the future when changes are made or if end users are not
satisfied with system performance. Earlier in this chapter, we discussed the example of
the large engineering firm. If they had performed a proper baseline up front, they would
have not experienced the many weeks of problems they had.
If you are virtualizing a small number of relatively low-importance database systems,
you might not need to go to the trouble of formally documenting the baselining and
benchmarking of the systems. However, if you are virtualizing one or more large or
mission-critical SQL Server systems, then this report should be considered a critical
part of your project deliverables. Remember that good performance now becomes
expected performance later. The performance bar is always moving, and without an
objective point of reference you have no way to determine whether your databases are
performing well or otherwise.
Here are our suggestions for the sections you should cover and the content you should
include at a minimum in your baseline performance report. This example was taken
from a baseline performance report created during a large database migration project.
Executive summary, including Report Overview and Baseline Assessment
highlights (assessment period, critical business cycles covered, data centers,
contributors, and summary of activities)
Baseline performance summary (system processor load for business hour average
and peak load, top-5 CPU consumers, top-5 IO consumers, and top-5 lowest
