Page 44 - Cyber Defense eMagazine forJune 2021

An Unworkable “Either-Or”

The new class of cloud-based Microsoft SQL Server users needs a reliable way to take full advantage of
SQL’s HA for local HA and its DR capabilities for remote data protection. But until recently, there’s been
a primary challenge. If these businesses wanted to use SQL Server for both HA and DR on Linux, they
had to either use a Pacemaker-based solution—which requires separate clusters for HA instances and
Availability Groups and relies on virtual private networks (VPNs) for DR—or combine HA SQL Server
instances with some other data replication solution—such as storage replication, block-level replication,
full virtual machine replication, etc.—and VPNs for DR.

This database HA/DR challenge has a big impact on SQL Server. If you think about the problems when
trying to implement a SQL Server AG cluster, Pacemaker clusters, and VPNs, the description that comes
to mind is “science project” architecture. It fails recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective
(RPO) requirements, lacks scalability, has reliability exposure due to insufficient VPN security, and is
also unsustainable from a financial perspective.

“Before and After” Use Case

Consider a “before and after” use case for a large financial services company. The “before” scenario at
the fintech firm is the one described above, with a SQL Server AG, Pacemaker clusters, and VPNs. What
we find is complex and brittle local HA and DR architecture, difficult cluster management with multiple
incompatible clustering technologies, and worse yet, long system-outages (RTO) with manual failover
management between clusters and datacenters. What’s more, there’s high network security exposure
with VPN lateral network attack surfaces, as well as the need to maintain pricey infrastructure.

When the fintech company shifts gears, however, and implements multi-platform Smart Availability
clustering software to run on top of SQL Server, the result is both faster transaction processing and better
uptime. The key is to leverage Smart Availability software for SQL Server that can not only increase the
performance of SQL Server AGs, but also simplify SQL Server workload management, respond to
channel partner and end customer requirements for improved SQL Server database resilience, and offer
Zero Trust security and scalability across private and public clouds as well as between on-premises and
remote locations. In the case of a fintech company that needs to combine local HA and remote data
protection, the organization can potentially decrease SQL Server costs by up to 50 percent.

Overcoming Traditional Challenges

Looking in more detail at the “after” use case in this regard, it features easy system management and
evergreen infrastructure compatibility, starting with a simplified, standardized local HA and DR
architecture with a single cluster. In addition to accelerated RPO via micro-tunnels for triple the SQL
Server AG performance, Smart Availability software also allows for speedy (sub-15 second) RTO with
easy, automatic failover management end-to-end.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – June 2021 Edition 44
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