House of Brick Technologies

Software-defined storage is quickly becoming mainstream and not having to deal with all of the headaches of storage management can be a wonderful thing.

Placing your tier 1 database workloads onto software-defined storage is possible, but it needs to be done correctly. Tier 1 database workloads are typically the most I/O intensive systems in an environment. Consequently, there are additional considerations that need to be taken into account in order to ensure performance and redundancy for these critical workloads. It doesn’t matter if your workload is SQL Server or Oracle, or if you are running Hyper-V or VMware, the concepts are the same.

In this session, we will walk through SDS, and cover topics including: sizing your workload, validating performance characteristics, and following recommended best practices for placing your most important applications on SDS.

Businesses sometime ignore Oracle database performance until poor performance impacts profitability, or the cost of Oracle licensing becomes significant. But this consideration frequently comes a bit late, and can cause tension between the business and technical staff.

Hear how we have helped our clients bridge the gap between business needs and technical resources. Learn how using the right tools, like Statspack and AWR, can help identify performance trends and enable a healthy dialogue between the business, technical, DBA, developer, and infrastructure teams.

Discover the importance of benchmarks in establishing baselines that:

1) Facilitate performance troubleshooting
2) Enable efficient use of existing hardware
3) Inform the hardware and software requisition narrative

Is the problem poorly performing hardware, misconfigured servers and instances, expensive SQL, and/or a lack of data life cycle management? An incorrect answer could place blame with the wrong department, increase frustration levels, and possibly result in higher hardware and software costs. So find the correct answer using the tools discussed in this webinar and facilitate a more cost effective and attainable solution for your business.

There is a lot of confusion around Oracle licensing, especially in virtualized or Cloud environments. In this session, we will provide an overview of the Skytap Cloud, and what Skytap has done to facilitate Oracle license-compliance in their cloud. We will provide education on the principles of Oracle licensing, and information on how those principles are applied to workloads running in the Skytap Cloud.

Advances in technology now have IT organizations evaluating hyper-converged solutions in lieu of building systems. Hyper-converged solutions integrate computers, networking, virtualization, flash storage, and management in one platform that accelerates deployment. In this session, we evaluate each component layer of these new hyper-converged technologies per the Oracle contract, with an eye to reducing rather than increasing database licensing quantities. Attending this session will give IT organizations a clear roadmap for managing database licensing, and offer next steps if additional resources are needed. DBAs and others attending this session will gain knowledge regarding how to apply licensing guidelines on hyper-converged platforms.

Everyone is talking about Cloud Computing, but there seems to be wildly differing perspectives on what it means, how it works, and the costs and benefits of such a model. When it comes to databases and other business critical applications in the cloud, the message is even more confusing. In this session, we will discuss what House of Brick is seeing and hearing from large enterprises to small businesses. The session will present the “right questions” to ask about Tier 1 applications and cloud – from private to public and other key SaaS/DBaaS considerations.

Come prepared to look at disaster recovery planning with a 360 degree view for the enterprise and SMB space, and walk away with technical ideas you can begin to implement immediately. During this presentation, we will discuss disaster recovery planning considerations and partnerships. We will also walk through technical solutions that provide a way to use virtualization and storage strategies for an approachable DR solution.

Discover the complexities of licensing database technologies such as Oracle, SQL Server and PostgreSQL on VMware, with particular emphasis on modern converged and hyper-converged platforms. It's vital to ensure your virtual machines stay compliant with your database vendor’s license requirements. Join us to learn about the business and financial risks involved if you don't have a solid plan in place for compliance, as well as explore strategies for controlling and/or reducing costs and limiting organizational risk.