In my most recent post, we looked at the steps to deploy the new Data Services Manager 9.1 SQL Server data service. In that post, we created an infrastructure policy to allocate vSphere resources such as CPU, Memory, Networking and Storage to the SQL Server Engine and subsequent databases. We saw how this approach can offer a DBaaS (Database as a Service) to your end-users, allowing consumers to use the DSM portal to provision their own databases on an existing SQL Server instance. In this post, we want to take that a step further and show how Data Services Manager…
Now that Data Services Manager version 9.1 is officially announced, I thought this would be a good time to step through the configuration of our new data service, Microsoft SQL Server. This is possibly the most requested data service I have heard from our customers since I started discussing Data Services Manager (DSM). Therefore I am personally very happy that SQL Server is now available in the 9.1 version of the product. There are a number of steps that need to followed to get this data service up and running, and note that I am only doing this in the…
It gives me great pleasure to announce the availability of Data Services Manger version 9.1. This releases sees a new data service, Microsoft SQL Server, now included in Data Services Manager. I know many of our customers are anticipating this data service, so it is great to finally announce it. The Data Services Manager 9.1 release also brings tighter integration with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) version 9.1 and VCF Automation version 9.1. Both of these exciting features will be covered in deep-dive posts over the coming weeks, but today, I want this post to briefly highlight all of the new…
In my most recent post, we saw how to setup a privileged user which would write SPNs for database users to enable Windows Authentication. We also saw how this user could update DNS entries automatically when a database is created. We followed these steps and provisioned a SQL Server instance. Once the instance was provisioned, we create a login for the owner and saw how the user could successfully login to the instance using Windows Auth. This is all great, but really one of the key points of DSM is self-service or DBaaS, database as a service. Therefore, what I…
Whilst Microsoft SQL Server is still in technical preview in Data Services Manager 9.0.1, our team continues to release significant enhancements for our customers as we gravitate towards full support. As I mentioned in the DSM 9.0.1 overview post, this release includes the ability to specify a privileged AD user who can create Service Principal Names (SPNs) for database users and update DNS entries. This means that the privileged user can now do the necessary tasks in Active Directory to allow Windows Authentication to work seamlessly on MS SQL Server instances and databases which have been provisioned via DSM. You…
The most visible feature in Data Services Manager (DSM) 9.0.1 is the appearance of some additional new objects in the navigation menu on the left hand side of the DSM UI. These are Namespaces and Data Services Policy. Customers who have already looked at VCF Automation, particularly as it integrates with DSM, may have some familiarity with these. Their purpose in DSM 9.0.1 is to align with RBAC features that are already in VCF Automation, specifically around multi-tenancy controls. Through the use of Namespaces and Data Service Policies in DSM 9.0.1, a DSM admin can now control which DSM users…
On a recent customer call regarding Postgres instances and databases provisioned by Data Services Manager (DSM), there was a question regarding Active Directory / LDAP integration. Specifically, there was a question on how to automatically provide an Active Directory / LDAP group access to a Postgres database. Now, as many readers are aware, DSM already supports Directory Services such as Active Directory and LDAPS for Postgres databases. See this earlier blog post on how to do that. But once Directory Services is configured in DSM, and selected during Postgres database provisioning, the DBA needs to create logins and grant access…