Straight Talk on Business Critical Applications in the Cloud

The process of establishing performance benchmarks and baselines is invaluable when it comes to understanding the health of your environment, and becomes even more crucial when dealing with business critical systems. In this session we will provide further insights regarding the importance of effective monitoring and metrics and how they can help you respond proactively to performance issues. We will also discuss best practices for monitoring and metrics as related to physical and virtual servers, storage, and databases.

You’ll leave with a better understanding of key considerations for determining performance baselines and benchmarks; the various categories of metrics and monitoring tools; a list of recommended reports, tools, and software; and best practices for gaining insights into the performance of your business critical systems.

In this presentation House of Brick Technologies, a leader in optimizing Oracle on Linux over the past decade, will offer SQL Server and Windows admins guidance on managing SQL Server on Linux.

We will discuss best practices for the installation of SQL Server on Linux, with a particular focus on:
• Distributions (which should you be using)
• Storage presentation and file systems
• SQL Server Engine install location
• User database locations

Options for performing the standard DBA processes, will also be addressed:
• Backup & Restore Procedures
• Performance & Tooling
• Operators/dbMail

You’ll leave with a better understanding of key considerations for installing SQL Server on Linux, the ways SQL Server on Linux differs from traditional SQL Server installations, a list of recommended tools and reports, and best practices for managing your SQL Server on Linux instances.

In this session, we will provide a summary of Oracle licensing by the contract, and explore Oracle audit practices referencing the Mars Incorporated lawsuit against Oracle.

We will share recommendations to help you prepare for an Oracle audit, including VMware licensing information.

In this presentation we will walk through a number of automation case studies. We will discuss the business problem addressed, how automation solved that problem, and the potential ROI experienced as a result.

The examples featured will offer insights into how automation tooling played a large role in solving the client's core business issues, with a specific focus on Windows and PowerShell technologies.

This will be an interactive session, so please feel free to bring your business problems and questions to share during the session.

Public cloud planning is part of most organizations’ IT strategies. When it comes to the most critical enterprise systems however, planning for cloud adoption is more complicated.

Nathan Biggs, CEO at House of Brick Technologies, a leader in virtualization and cloud computing for enterprise-class systems, will discuss options for deploying enterprise systems into public clouds. In addition, roadblocks to the cloud will be reviewed, and strategies for adoption will be considered.

Nathan will also share predictions for what House of Brick expects for enterprise cloud adoption in the coming year. Join us for this in-depth, forward look into the future of cloud adoption and planning for the enterprise!

As much as the term Cloud Computing gets tossed around these days you would think everyone’s using it. But do cloud predictions really match real world use? If you aren’t “in the cloud” are you already behind the competition?

During this presentation, we will discuss the pros and cons of moving applications to the cloud, with a particular focus on business critical applications. We will share our experiences working with clients to determine if their applications are “cloud ready” through a review of availability, costs, and operational impacts. Examples of successful use cases in the public cloud will be explored including emerging technologies, DRaaS, new applications, older applications running on older hardware, and startups.

You’ll leave with a better understanding of the types of applications that are best suited for the cloud, a list of questions you should be asking when considering moving to the cloud, and a checklist you can use to evaluate your application’s cloud readiness.

In this session we will provide an overview of licensing Oracle programs using Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) on POWER/AIX VMs in the Skytap Cloud. There is a lot of confusion around Oracle licensing, especially in virtualized or cloud environments. Many of the references to discussion points and legal challenges resulting from running virtualized x86 platforms apply directly to POWER environments as well.

Key takeaways from this webinar include:

- Skytap Cloud is an effective option for IaaS, including for Oracle-based POWER/AIX applications.
- The use of POWER/AIX VMs for Oracle workloads in Skytap Cloud ensures that Oracle workloads stay running only on licensed processors.
- Skytap Cloud provides support for Oracle licensing by allocating dedicated resources to Oracle workloads.
- In an Oracle audit, usage of Skytap Cloud environments will be documented as if the LPARs or servers are part of the customer’s on-premises environment.

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.