New Data Service: Microsoft SQL Server (Tech Preview)
I know this is something that a lot of our customer have been waiting for. It is possibly the most requested data service that I have heard our customers ask for at the various VMUGs, Explores and CTABs that I have attended. So I am delighted to say that we have a technical preview of Microsoft SQL Server in DSM 9.0. We will have the following features in the tech preview:
- Fleet Management via DSM UI
- Support for SQL Server Instances
- Support for SQL Server Databases
- Configure Custom Certificates
- Configure Backup Schedules
- Easy Clone and Restore of databases using UI and/or API with YAML manifests
- Easy Connect to the Database with Connection String using SQL Server Authentication
- Support for Active Directory / Windows Authentication as well as SQL Server Authentication
The interesting part here is that DSM offers both MS SQL Server instance as a service and MS SQL Server database as a service. Once an instance is deployed, it can be used to provision additional databases, offering true database-as-a-service. This behaviour is subtly different to how we offer PostgreSQL and MySQL where instance and database as deployed together on request. However, we treated MS SQL Server differently based on the feedback that we received from our design partners and early access customers. I will be following up with a more detailed post specifically on the MS SQL Server data service tech preview shortly.
Private Cloud Experience for Data Services with VCF
I’m sure many readers will be aware of the extensive work going on here at Broadcom to bring our customers a seamless private cloud experience in VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0. DSM plays a significant role in this experience, providing our VCF customers with multi-tenanted data services in VCF. This integration allows multi-tenant users to provision self-service databases in VCF. Again, I will do a fuller description of the various DSM and VCF integration points in some later blog posts, but let me leave you with some of the major points around the DSM & VCF Automation integration in this post:
- DSM 9.0 has seamless Integration with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, allowing for the deployment and management of databases and data services on a per tenant basis
- VCF 9.0, through DSM integration, now offers self-service of data services via VCF Automation. VCF Automation offers both an integration point and centralised control over all data services within VCF
- Data service governance is achieved through the use of a new features called Data Service Policies, which is embedded into VCF Automation. Using these policies, an admin can decide which tenants have access to which data services engines and versions, as well as define which vSphere resources a tenant is allowed to consume for the provisioning of databases and data services
- Choice to continue leveraging the traditional DSM-Managed infrastructure policies for data services resources or alternatively choose a new vSphere Namespace based infrastructure policy approach. The latter approach also enables DSM to leverage vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS), one of the Supervisor services that is used for creating Kubernetes clusters.
- The VMware Data Services Manager API can be used to publish PostgreSQL and MySQL metrics to both VCF Operations and Prometheus.
Easier system backup monitoring in DSM 9.0
DSM Admins have new page to the DSM UI to provide details about system (Provider) backup status. This new view now reports any issues that occur with the system backup, especially the backup location, along with status and guidance on how to address such issues. DSM 9.0 now also has a ceiling on WAL (Write Ahead Log) files set to 60GB. This will only be necessary if the log files are not being shipped to the backup location successfully. If this threshold is reached, old WAL files are removed (automatically deleted). Once the issue with the backup location has been addressed, a full backup will need to be triggered. This can now be done via the UI. A status flag shows if WAL file are being automatically deleted. This flag is reset once the next full backup of the provider is taken successfully. This behaviour avoids filling up the Provider filesystem with WAL files which cannot be shipped to backup location, something a number of customers have experienced.
MySQL Management Enhancement
In VMware Data Services Manager 9.0, MySQL database management has been enhanced so that users can now update the database administrator password and default database name, even after the database has been deployed. This will give some added flexibility in post-deployment customisation for MySQL users.
Alerting and Monitoring Improvements
There is a new Notifications tab in the monitoring UI for configuration of watchers through email and webhooks. Multiple watchers can now receive database health alerts by email.
The DSM Log Forwarding workflow has been enhanced to include the Gateway Audit log and Appliance (aka Provider) Audit log. Finally, we have also added the ability to define a custom time ranges in the performance and health check views so that administrator can focus on specific time-lines when doing trend analysis, or investigating certain events and performance behaviours of a data service.
DSM 9.0 comes with full FIPS support
FIPS, Federal Information Processing Standard, is enabled on both the DSM Provider Appliance and the DSM workload clusters provisioned for databases and data service. Enabling FIPS at the OS Level is considered a “must-have” for workloads deployed in the U.S. Federal / Government sector.
That completes the overview of new features in DSM 9.0. Thank you for reading to the end. I will follow up this post with some more details on some of the items listed above in future blog posts.