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Steve Jones - SSC Editor
Posted Monday, January 31, 2011 9:32 PM


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Comments posted to this topic are about the item What's a Passive Server?






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Post #1056578
Malcolm Daughtree
Posted Monday, January 31, 2011 11:09 PM
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Passive... is a very relative term But, as far as SQL server licencing is concerned if you are 'using' it even readonly or DBA activity then this is deemed a 'Production server'. I know this is also an over used term but the only 'passive server' that doesn't need a licence applied is a mirrored server in the pure sense of the word. The area that is hitting the DBA at the moment is the understanding what Mircosoft refer to as 'Data mobility'. There is not one answer. Trust me, we've been tooing and froing with our licence provider over this for a long time. Their original bill was, to say the least, un-believable and 6 week later we have managed to cut it by two thirds, the CIO is happy. There is no one answer and the calulation is convoluted for instance.
Case 1. (I'm using rough figures $10K per STD, $30K per Enterprise, datacenter I'm not even going there.....)
1 SQL Standard installation on a dual quad core server = 1 licence per Physical CPU (black plastic on the motherboard) hence $10K X 2 = $20K.
Case 2
The same SQ server install on a Virtual server using the cores per cpu division rule, need only 1 licence, working like this
1 SQL std using 2 Virtual CPU's (on a dual quad core host) 2 / 4 is less than 1 there only 1 licence. As common sense would dictate in that in a virtual environment you don't get to use all the horse-power of the CPU there MS uses that number of Vcpu's/the number of cores to determine the license count required. Therefore only $10K .... Ahhh I hear you say well we'll just put all the SQL servers on one host, give them 4 VCPU's "huzzar" I hear you say, 'supedup SQL servers', and to a point that can work. But remember you can only fit 5 Lbs of excretment in a 5 Lb bag and if start over subscribing the Host then you are in a world of hurt.
I hear the ESX/Hyper V boys and girls going "but we have dynamic resource allocation and clustered ESX hosts with 24 cores and 196Gig of RAM, not a problem." -- Wrong !! Because if left to the defaults and you let you virtual environment management move the "SQL Server" or "OSE (operating system environments)" as MS describes between host and because the STD edition doesn't have this licence mobility, the calculation is very VERY different.
1 STD SQL Server with 2 vCPU's with 3 possible hosts equals 2/4 there 1 license x 3 possible locations by $10K = $30K . Now do the same calulation with Enterprise Edition(licensing the vCPU's) 1 Ent using 2/4 = 1 licence with 3 possible hosts = 1 x $30k x 3 = $90K.
Don't just take my word for it check this out http://tonymackelworth.wordpress.com/category/sql-server/

This is not a new thing as this licensing model was introduced in 2008.

The break even point is when you calculate the cost of an Enterprise license per physical CPU model eg 6 Physical CPU ESX host where each is licenced starts looking competitive 6 x $30K = $180 K with each licence you can install 4 OSEs, up to enterprise edition, therefore 24 STD editions if licenesed individually would be 24 x $10K = $240K. In our environment this worked, yours will be different.

There are so many variations that each environment needs to be investigated taking into account the virtual hosts, High availability options used, a whole raft of things.

BTW the new version of ESX (4.0) has migration rules that can be utililised to prevent migration between host groups and there by possibly reducing your TCO of SQL server.

Have fun. This is the brave new world-Virtually.

CodeOn
Post #1056605
chrisn-585491
Posted Tuesday, February 01, 2011 6:29 AM
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The only "Passive Server" would be one that had no-commercial software requiring paid licenses. This would exclude any offering from Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, etc, but I believe PostgreSQL running on Linux could be consider "passive", no matter the load...
Post #1056765
getoffmyfoot
Posted Tuesday, February 01, 2011 6:39 AM
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chrisn-585491 (2/1/2011)
The only "Passive Server" would be one that had no-commercial software requiring paid licenses. This would exclude any offering from Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, etc, but I believe PostgreSQL running on Linux could be consider "passive", no matter the load...


I totally second that. Postgres + linux = who cares what's "passive"?
Post #1056772
Bob Matthews
Posted Tuesday, February 01, 2011 7:05 AM
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Microsoft's licensing is all so ridiculously complicated that they offer a full day course in it! Software licenses should take up no more space than Steve's daily editorial.
Post #1056786
kswartze
Posted Tuesday, February 01, 2011 7:28 AM
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Steve,

I find that after reading "What's a Passive Server?", I still don't know what a passive server is. The only bone you threw us was at the very end where you say it's a server "not doing any work..." So what exactly does that mean?

I assume a passive server delivers some value or we wouldn't be talking about it. What is the value of the passive server and why would I have one? Is it for backup/redundancy only? If the server is storing retrievable data then I would argue that it's doing the most basic work that a db can do. Please elaborate.
Post #1056806
Ron Porter
Posted Tuesday, February 01, 2011 7:56 AM
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Without getting into the definition of a passive server, here's the way I think it should work.

That disaster-recovery (DR) or high-availability (HA) server does have value because it serves a very real business need. That strikes me as being worth paying for. Given that they are not accessible to the users in their normal state, it seems to me that the licensing cost should be dramatically reduced. Obviously, those servers need to be managed and maintained if they are going to serve their purpose and it seems reasonable to say that they will only be put into full service when the other server(s) go down.

That leads me to conclude that those kinds of servers should be licensed, but at dramatically reduced cost. Naturally, the license should include the freedom to manage and maintain the server as necessary. Finally, since these servers are going to be put into full service only when something else is down, planned or otherwise, I would like to see the 'full' license of downed server be sufficient for temporary operation or transferable for permanent operation.
Post #1056826
Steve Jones - SSC Editor
Posted Tuesday, February 01, 2011 9:54 AM


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kswartze (2/1/2011)
Steve,

I find that after reading "What's a Passive Server?", I still don't know what a passive server is. The only bone you threw us was at the very end where you say it's a server "not doing any work..." So what exactly does that mean?


Somewhat the point of the editorial. I still don't know either. It appears that there isn't a good definition from Microsoft on what this is. If I find one, I'll post it.






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Post #1056935
Steve Jones - SSC Editor
Posted Tuesday, February 01, 2011 9:56 AM


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Ron Porter (2/1/2011)
... Finally, since these servers are going to be put into full service only when something else is down, planned or otherwise, I would like to see the 'full' license of downed server be sufficient for temporary operation or transferable for permanent operation.


My understanding is that if you have a passive server (whatever that is), handling your mirroring or clustering, if it takes over the load, it becomes the "active" server and the license moves. However I'm not sure how the clause mentioned in the editorial applies.






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Post #1056937
Ron Porter
Posted Tuesday, February 01, 2011 10:15 AM
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Steve Jones - SSC Editor (2/1/2011)
Ron Porter (2/1/2011)
... Finally, since these servers are going to be put into full service only when something else is down, planned or otherwise, I would like to see the 'full' license of downed server be sufficient for temporary operation or transferable for permanent operation.


My understanding is that if you have a passive server (whatever that is), handling your mirroring or clustering, if it takes over the load, it becomes the "active" server and the license moves. However I'm not sure how the clause mentioned in the editorial applies.


Most of what I said is purely theoretical. As yet, I've never worked on any system where there were mirrors or anything else that could be called a passive server, regardless of how that might be defined. Between the article and some of the comments, I was led to think that the license wouldn't follow the action (in the sense of 'active server', again, whatever that might be :))
Post #1056955
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