{"id":3643,"date":"2012-03-23T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-23T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2024-01-22T22:49:46","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T06:49:46","slug":"simplifying-management-of-pdw-appliances-with-system-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/sql-server\/blog\/2012\/03\/23\/simplifying-management-of-pdw-appliances-with-system-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Simplifying Management of PDW Appliances with System Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) is a highly scalable appliance for enterprise data warehousing that enables massive scalability, predictable performance, and complete BI solution at low cost. PDW ships with a web based management console for monitoring the health of PDW appliance and resolving issues. The appliance model and this web based tool simplify the management of large data warehouses by enabling DBAs to manage several data racks from a single interface. <\/p>\n

Enterprise customers would love to include PDW appliances in their enterprise monitoring solutions such as System Center Operations Manager (SCOM). The new PDW management pack (MP) delivers this critical functionality to our enterprise customers by accurately and consistently representing the health of PDW appliances, thereby enabling the datacenter operators to manage the PDW appliances seamlessly from a \u2018single pane of glass\u2019. In addition, it also empowers IT to manage all their SQL Server Data Warehouses, including Fast Track and SQL Server instances, from a single place. This blog provides an overview of PDW management pack (MP) feature set. You can download the management pack <\/font>here<\/font><\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n

The following diagram shows the high level physical architecture of PDW appliance monitored by SCOM.<\/font><\/p>\n

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(Click on image above for full size)<\/font><\/p>\n

PDW MP Functionality can be broken down into the following three core capabilities:<\/font><\/p>\n

1.<\/strong>\u00a0 Discover the appliance and individual nodes<\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Discovery of the PDW appliance is as straight forward as creating an ODBC connection to the PDW appliance from the SCOM server. Once the \u2018run-as account\u2019 in SCOM is mapped to the right profile, the PDW MP will start discovering all nodes within the appliance and their roles. Just add more ODBC DSNs to monitor additional appliances, but make sure to add new \u2018run-as accounts\u2019 for each appliance if the monitor credentials are different on each PDW instance. SCOM will automatically discover the connection and then add the appliance to the list of appliances monitored. You do not have to install any agents on the PDW appliance. The following screen shot shows you the appliance and appliance nodes post discovery.
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Appliance discovery<\/b> \u2013 The appliance discovery includes the vendor type (HP\/Dell). The health of multiple PDW appliances can be monitored from the same view. <\/p>\n

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(Click on image above for full size) <\/p>\n

Appliance node discovery \u2013 <\/b>Shows you the list of all the nodes within the appliance and their roles <\/p>\n

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(Click on image above for full size) <\/p>\n

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2.\u00a0 Actively monitor the health of the appliances<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

The PDW MP issues queries from the SCOM server to the PDW Control Node. It uses the same Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) for monitoring that are used in the PDW administration portal. This way there is consistency in the health displayed in the administration console and the SCOM console. The health from the lowest component is rolled up from the individual nodes to indicate the overall health of the appliance.
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