10

Ways to
Save Money
and Provide More Comprehensive
Availability Protection
in SQL Server Environments

Clusters Your Way.™

What are
Your Choices? ?
To provide high availability protection for SQL Server, you can use
AlwaysOn Availability Groups or AlwaysOn Failover Clustering with
SIOS DataKeeper™ Cluster Edition. Let’s take a look at how they
compare.
AlwaysOn Availability Groups is a high availability feature included with SQL
Server 2012 Enterprise Edition. It is positioned as an evolution of SQL Server
Database Mirroring and an alternative to AlwaysOn Failover Clustering.
AlwaysOn Failover Clustering is included in SQL Server Enterprise and
Standard Edition. You can use it with SIOS DataKeeper Cluster
Edition software to deliver high availability and more robust data
protection features for a fraction of the cost of SQL Server Enterprise
Edition with AlwaysOn Availability Groups.

Windows Server
Failover Clustering
SIOS DataKeeper
Cluster Edition
Windows
Application

Clusters Your Way.™

What is a
#SANLess Cluster? ?
SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition is a software ingredient that
enhances your Windows Server Failover Clustering environment. It
provides real time, block level replication to synchronize local attached
storage, enabling you to create a #SANLess cluster and to eliminate the
cost, complexity, and single point of failure risk of SAN storage.

Clusters Your Way.™

10 Ways to Save. . .
$
. . . and Provide
More Comprehensive
Availability Protection in
SQL Server Environments

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Clusters Your Way.™

Spend a lot less
on licensing. 1
AlwaysOn Availability Groups requires SQL Server
2012 Enterprise Edition.
SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition lets you use AlwaysOn Failover
Clustering, which is included in both Standard and Enterprise Editions
of SQL Server 2012, 2008 and 2005 for cost-efficient failover and disaster
protection solution.

Software Cost Comparison

$
250K

32 Core
200K
$

$
219,968
150K
$

100K
$

2 Socket
50K
$
16 Core $
64,698
$
35,888
SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2008 R2 SQL Server 2012
Standard Edition Enterprise Edition Enterprise Edition
w/ SIOS DataKeeper w/ SIOS DataKeeper with AlwaysOn

Clusters Your Way.™

Protect distributed
transactions. 2
If your application relies on a distributed transaction coordinator (DTC),
you cannot use AlwaysOn Availability Groups because the instance
ID of the server changes upon failover and the distributed transaction
coordinator is not aware of the new instance ID.
You can use SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition with Windows Server
Failover Clustering. SIOS DataKeeper protects the entire SQL instance
and the SQL instance ID is preserved on failover.

DTC

SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition

Clusters Your Way.™

Protect all of
your databases. 3
SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups only supports up
to 10 Availability Groups and 100 databases per Availability Group,
(if the hardware will support that many replication pairs).
Windows Server Failover Clustering with SIOS DataKeeper
supports an unlimited number of databases.

100 DB Unlimited
100 DB 100 DB
DB
100 DB 100 DB 100 DB
vs.
100 DB 100 DB 100 DB 100 DB

10 Availability Groups

AlwaysOn SIOS DataKeeper

Availability Groups Cluster Edition

Clusters Your Way.™

Protect system
databases. 4
SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups only replicates user
defined databases – NOT MSDB and Master databases. Agent jobs and
SQL Server account information are not automatically synchronized and
will not fail over as part of the Availability Group.
SIOS DataKeeper with Failover Clustering protects the entire SQL
Server instance, including all of the system databases, ensuring complete
recovery, including SQL Agent jobs and account information.

Failover
SIOS DataKeeper &
Failover Clusters
(All Data)

AlwaysOn Availability Groups

(User Databases only)

Clusters Your Way.™

Automate database
administration. 5
SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups are configured and
managed at the database layer, not at the SQL Server instance. Therefore,
administrators must reconfigure protection every time a database is added
or dropped.

Failover Clustering with SIOS DataKeeper protects the entire SQL

Server instance and automatically includes databases as they are added
(or dropped), in the protection scheme, saving time and reducing the risk
of human error.

Clusters Your Way.™

Support failover with
more than two nodes. 6
AlwaysOn Availability Groups does not support more than two nodes in
a failover configuration limiting your configuration flexibility.
SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition gives you the flexibility to create
clusters your way. You can configure a multinode failover configuration
and mix SAN-based and #SANLess storage to protect your SQL Server
applications and data as you choose.

Clusters Your Way.™

Replicate any
data type. 7
AlwaysOn Availability Groups only replicates SQL Server databases,
leaving other data types unprotected.

SQL D
Or

Sharepo
W

ac

Em
o
rd

le

ail

Jp
ata

g e
int

SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition with Windows Server Failover

Cluster delivers complete protection of both SQL data and the data your
application relies on outside of the SQL database
SQL D
Or

Sharepo
W

ac

Em
o
rd

le

J
ata

p
il

eg
int

Clusters Your Way.™

Improve replication
efficiency. 8
When AlwaysOn Availability Groups is configured in a synchronous-
commit mode (required for high availability) it slows application write
performance.

Microsoft describes synchronous-commit mode as

“…emphasizes high availability over performance, at the cost
of increased transaction latency.”

SIOS DataKeeper uses efficient block level replication that minimizes

the performance impact of synchronous replication. SIOS DataKeeper also
supports asynchronous replication.

Inserts per Second

1.2M

1M

800K
250%
600K Faster
than
400K
AlwaysOn!

200K

No Mirror
#SANLess Cluster Replication
AlwaysOn SQL Replication

Clusters Your Way.™

Eliminate the SAN
single point of failure. 9
A traditional SAN-based AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instance adds risk as a
potential single point of failure.
SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition uses real time, block level
replication to synchronize local attached storage, enabling you to create a
#SANLess cluster and eliminate the cost, complexity, and single point of
failure risk

vs.

AlwaysOn Faliover Cluster SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition

Clusters Your Way.™

Create
multisite clusters. 10
Because AlwaysOn Failover Clusters rely on a SAN they are limited to a
single site.
SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition lets you deploy a multisite cluster
for high availability and disaster recovery without the need for multiple
SANs. You can configure it with all replicated storage or a combination of
shared and replicated storage.

Cloud

Prim DR S
ary ite

Clusters Your Way.™

10 Ways to
protect SQL 10
AlwaysOn AlwaysOn AlwaysOn Failover
Availability Failover Cluster with SIOS
Groups Cluster DataKeeper
Support SQL Server
1 0 4 4
Standard Edition

Protect distributed
2 0 4 4
transactions

Protect an unlimited
3 0 4 4
number of databases

Protect system
4 databases (master, 0 4 4
MSDB, etc)

Automate database
5 0 4 4
administration

Support more than

6 two nodes in failover 0 4 4
configuration

Replicate data other

7 0 0 4
than SQL

Improve replication
8 2 0 4
efficiency

Eliminate SAN as single

9 4 0 4
point of failure

Support multisite
10 4 0 4
clusters

Clusters Your Way.™

 Ready to
Learn More
About protecting your SQL Server with SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition?
www.clustersyourway.com

© 2014 SIOS Technology Corp. All rights reserved. SIOS, SIOS Technology, SIOS DataKeeper and SIOS Protection Suite
and associated logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of SIOS Technology Corp. and/or its affiliates in the
United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Clusters Your Way.™