More and more organizations are moving databases to AWS for accelerated innovation, agility, and enhanced security. However, achieving these benefits requires knowledge of best practices and correct configurations—not only for the storage, but also for the database itself and its compute instances.
BlueXP™ workload factory for AWS can change all that. It optimizes the deployment and operations management of critical workloads deployed on Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP through automation and integration of industry best practices.
In this post we’ll deep dive into the capabilities of BlueXP workload factory for critical databases on FSx for ONTAP by giving you the ability to:
- Explore database savings: Workload factory helps identify existing AWS database deployments or deploy new ones, evaluating potential cost savings by using FSx for ONTAP as the data storage solution.
- Automate best practices: Workload factory supports end-to-end automation of database deployment, incorporating AWS and NetApp® ONTAP® best practices. Administrators can do this via GUI or through auto-generated infrastructure-as-code snippets
- Operate and optimize: Workload factory uses a visual inventory to provide comprehensive visibility into your deployment, helping to streamline operations with automatic optimization recommendations.
- Test drive your databases: Workload factory offers a Sandbox—an isolated database environment separate from your production setup—for testing, diagnostics, training, and database refreshes.
These features help without compromising on performance, cost-effectiveness, or security.
Read on to learn how, here’s what we’ll cover:
- Databases can be a lot. They don’t have to be.
- BlueXP workload factory optimizes database functionality
- Explore database savings
- Automate best practices
- Operate and optimize
- Test drive your databases
- Streamline your database runs with workload factory
Databases can be a lot. They don’t have to be.
Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP provides significant benefits for self-managed databases—performance to maintain low latencies, high availability across Availability Zones, accelerated development cycles, and cost efficiency, to name just a few. However, organizations could still face significant challenges with self-managed databases, especially around operations and management.
To start with, you need to have a good understanding of the different systems and tools involved as well as the best practices to be followed. Even with all the benefits of a fully managed storage layer, deploying enterprise-grade databases on AWS, such as Microsoft SQL Server, can be quite complex.
The intricate interplay between databases’ compute and storage systems can pose significant challenges. Making sure your database has optimal performance, efficiency, and effectiveness calls for a deep understanding of each layer’s configurations and their interactions. Whether you’re working with database settings for performance and autogrowth, selecting the right size of compute, or configuring the correct layout, size, and tiering policy for storage, managing these systems can be overwhelming.
Without careful planning and coordination, deployments can often result in inefficiencies, increased complexity, and unnecessary added costs. This calls for a comprehensive solution that simplifies all the concerns mentioned above, so organizations can achieve optimal performance and efficiency from their databases.
For self-managed database admins, NetApp and AWS offer Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP, which can help address some of these challenges. This comprehensive service supports databases and a wide range of other workloads with fully managed storage on AWS. But to get the most out of FSx for ONTAP without extensive knowledge and training on the ins and outs of storage configuration and optimization, there is another component that can help—BlueXP workload factory.
BlueXP workload factory optimizes database functionality
Managing workloads requires substantial efforts around deployment, operations, and ongoing optimization, and often administrators will need to use multiple tools to do that. BlueXP workload factory is a SaaS solution that can help you implement some industry best practices in deployment, operations, and protection of key workloads, including self-managed databases.
There are several ways that workload factory supports database deployments, letting you explore database savings, automate best practices, operate and optimize, and test drive your databases.
Let’s take a look in detail at some of the areas where BlueXP workload factory can help database deployments in AWS:
Explore database savings
Workload factory can be used to assess possible cost savings in database deployments by using FSx for ONTAP instead of other storage services. This allows you to compare and contrast the two options to optimize costs. This enables you to make an informed decision on using resource types and aligning with established best practices, all while reducing overall cost of database deployments.
This information is easily accessible from the Explore saving tab in workload factory, shown here:
You can change parameters, such as snapshot frequency, the number of clones, and the data change rate to get a view of how those changes will impact costs.
Workload factory will present a detailed view of cost breakdown and the factors that contributed to the calculation, such as instance details and storage information. It also provides recommendations based on the configuration options for optimal deployment and details the assumptions used for those calculations. Then, you can download the assessment to save for later or share with other stakeholders.
Automate best practices
Workload factory offers automated deployment capabilities that adhere to AWS, NetApp ONTAP, and Microsoft best practices. Customers can opt for a simple and quick creation wizard or a detailed advanced configuration option for deployment.
Here you can see the creation wizard and codebox in action:
There are three options here:
- The “Quick create” wizard provides you with pre-configured deployment options that integrate recommended best practices for common workload types. It streamlines the process for users who require a rapid setup without deep configuration knowledge.
- The “Advanced create” option offers full control over deployment parameters, including availability, security, backups, and maintenance settings. It caters to users with specific requirements or those who prefer the hands-on approach. You can also interact with this service through a user-friendly chatbot, which can assist you in making decisions, provide recommendations based on the database workload characteristics, and offer troubleshooting guidance.
- The codebox option allows users to input or modify deployment scripts in various formats, including CloudFormation, AWS CLI, APIs, and Terraform. The codebox offers significant value by automatically generating code as users add parameters in the wizard. These automation snippets can then be integrated into existing Infrastructure-as-code workflows. For users who prefer using their own automation tools, workload factory provides ready-to-use scripts that can be easily copied and pasted. Additionally, users can copy the code snippets without providing credentials, enhancing convenience. However, if credentials are provided, they can be securely managed directly through workload factory via the dashboard.
This is how workload factory helps create automatic end-to-end database deployments, covering the full stack of the database workload (compute, database, storage, networking, etc.) with implemented best practices through a GUI or via auto-generated IaC snippets.
Operate and optimize
Workload factory provides a dashboard view of databases. It offers key metrics and visualizations to monitor the overall health, performance benchmarks, and capacity utilization of your databases.
Below you can see the Inventory tab in workload factory. You can see the dashboard in the upper widget, and the detailed inventory itself in the lower one:
The database inventory view delves deeper into individual database workloads, enabling granular monitoring and management. The insights provided by the workload factory can help administrators detect configuration drift and optimize
performance.
Test drive your databases
Workload factory can also be used to create and manage clones, which it puts to use in the form of sandbox environments. Sandboxes are isolated clones of production databases that can be used for testing, development, or data analysis purposes without impacting the primary environment. These are lightweight copies that are created instantly with near-zero cost for capacity using NetApp FlexClone® technology. This is very helpful in use cases such as testing, diagnostics, training and for DB refreshes.
In addition to accelerated development and testing, the sandbox feature enables improved time to market thanks to the instant creation process of test environments that won’t affect production or add to costs significantly.
Below you can see the details of an isolated environment in the Sandboxes tab:
Workload factory also provides comprehensive job monitoring capabilities which provide real- time visibility into the progress, status, and performance of tasks initiated within the service. That helps users keep tabs on task completion and accuracy, resolve blocking issues, optimize the management process, and get insights into workload patterns and trends.
Streamline your database runs with workload factory
Workload factory is designed to optimize the deployment and management of database workloads on FSx for ONTAP.
By doing the deployment right the first time, BlueXP workload factory can help you bring down database costs by as much as 50%, and help reduce error-prone manual steps by up to 90%. It’s a better, safer way to run your database.
Ready to optimize your database performance and reduce costs up to 50%? Get started with your existing BlueXP credentials or sign up here.
