Introduction – Please Read First
These questions are here to assist with ensuring that you’re gathering necessary information from a customer/prospect in order to put together an appropriate solution to meet their requirements in addition to capturing specific metrics from tools like Collector or RVTools.
This list is not exhaustive, but should be used as a guide to make sure you’ve done proper and thorough discovery. Also, it is imperative that you don’t just ask a question without understanding the reason why it is being asked. We’ve structured these questions with not only the question that should be asked, but why we are asking the customer to provide an answer to that question and why it matters to provide an optimal solution.
Questions marked with an asterisk (*) will likely require reaching out to a specialist/Solution Architect resource at Nutanix to go deeper with the customer on that topic/question. Make sure you use the answers to these questions in the Scenario Objectives in Sizer when you create a new Scenario. These questions should help guide you as to what the customer requirements, constraints, assumptions, and risks are for your opportunity.
This is a live document, and questions will be expand and update over time.
Databases
Generic
1. Is this replacing a current solution, or is this a net new project? What’s the current solution?
Why ask? This question helps us understand the use case, any current expectations and what the competitive landscape may look like
2. Is the current environment coming to the end of a contract and due for contract renewal/hardware refresh? how soon?
Why ask? It helps us understand how serious the customer is about migrating and the drivers : usually cost and helps create a pipe-line.
3. Is the current Infrastructure solution bare-metal/3-tier or virtualized or Engineered Appliance ? provide details
a. e.g. AIX , Solaris Sparc , VMware Virtualized , OVM/KVM, Exadata/ODA (Oracle)
b. FC SAN/speed/10GbE Ethernet/iSCSI , Storage Array : Vendor : All Flash/Hybrid
c. If possible use automated means to capture configuration and performance information to help with capturing as much information as possible (RVTools, Collector, AWR, LiveOptics, MAP, etc.)
Why ask? To determine which environment is easier to go after as a starting point.
4. What are the 3 major pain points in current environment(s) ( other than end of life/contract). Examples:
a. License Consolidation
b. Managing multiple GUIs ( need single pane of Glass)
c. Life Cycle Management/Patching
d. Performance
e. Storage Sprawl due to multiple copies
f. Provisioning
Why ask? Helps us articulate Nutanix Value for Relational Database Workloads.
5. How many sites/env. ( PROD / DR / QA/DEV/Test)
Why ask? Helps us articulate a Disaster recovery/backup strategy.
6. How are backups done today : Native or 3rd Party tools , leveraging Snaps/clones?
Why ask? Whether using third party DR tools ( Zerto/Actifio/SRM) or native database replication. Whether using third party backup ( Commvault/VEEAM/VERITAS ) or native tools
7. Workload types? : OLTP (Online Transactional Processing) / OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) /DWH (Data Warehouse)
Why ask? Helps us identify transactional, OLTP, vs Analytical, OLAP/DWH ( latency sensitivity )
8. Largest Database size?
Why ask? Beyond 30 TB , hyperconverged virtualizing may not be beneficial. Need to understand use case
9. Performance Characteristics desired : Bandwidth / IOPS / Latency. These can be given directly from the customer if known, or gathered using local operating system metrics (perfmon/top) or via a discovery tool or script like AWR for Oracle, or a tool like LiveOptics, SolarWinds, etc.
Why ask? Accurate sizing
10. Type of Database Clustering used if Any
Why ask? Determine if there are potentially any mission critical workloads
MSSQL
SQL Server Inventory Questions:
1. Number of SQL Server Instances in the environment?
Why ask? Inventory purposes and Era only supports a single SQL Server instance on the same host.
2. Number of SQL Server databases in the environment?
Why ask? Inventory purposes and also helps identify which databases are considered critical for AG (Always On Availability Groups) etc. , databases reside in an instance.
3. Total size of SQL Server databases in the environment?
Why ask? Inventory sizing purposes.
4. SQL Server versions used in the environment?
Why ask? Different SQL Server versions have different features, limitations etc and also different CU cumulative update levels. SQL Server stopped issuing service packs in SQL Server 2016 everything now is a CU format. External SQL Server Edition and Version Comparison.
5. Windows versions used in the environment?
Why ask? Different Windows versions have different features, limitations and update levels that may affect SQL Server, also driver versions etc.
6. SQL Server licensing model used in the environment Core, or Server/Cal?
Why ask? This can help differentiate which licensing model the customer is using and why.
7. SQL Server High Availability and Disaster Recovery being used in the environment? *(Depending on the complexity for HA or DR, this would warrant further discussion with a Database Specialist/Solutions Architect)
Why ask? This can help determine if shared storage is used such as a SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance (FCI), or a SQL Server Always On Availability Group (AG) which does not require shared storage. Also is there any multi site replication being used either as a physical storage layer or logical SQL Server layer.
8. CPU model, type, speed allocated for current/existing SQL Server hosts?
Why ask? Inventory sizing purposes for baseline.
9. Number of CPU/Cores allocated for SQL Server hosts?
Why ask? Inventory sizing purposes for baseline.
10. Amount of Memory allocated for SQL Server hosts?
Why ask? Inventory sizing purposes for baseline.
11. Amount of storage allocated for SQL Server hosts?
Why ask? Inventory sizing purposes for baseline.
12. Storage type used for SQL Server hosts, flash, HDD, DAS, SAN etc?
Why ask? Inventory sizing purposes for baseline helpful in determining expectations with regard to latency.
13. Network allocation (speed, number of nics) for SQL Server hosts?
Why ask? Inventory sizing purposes for baseline.
SQL Server Performance Questions:
1. What is the total max IOPS required for all SQL Server Instances?
Why ask? The number of I/O service requests to use as a baseline for their current workload.
2. What is the latency requirement for SQL Server?
Why ask? The response time requirement to use as a baseline for their current workload.
3. What is the bandwidth requirement for SQL Server both read/write?
Why ask? The throughput requirement to use as a baseline for their current workload.
4. What is the current SQL Server workload profile read/write ratio?
Why ask? This helps determine what their workload profile is like and how it will affect our platform (reads are local, writes incur node replication cost) as a baseline.
5. What is the SQL Server average IO size?
Why ask? This helps determine what their workload profile I/O size is related to bandwidth .
6. Top current SQL Server wait statistics during peak workload?
Why ask? This helps determine what SQL Server is waiting on to process transactions, where there may be a bottleneck.
7. Current customer Microsoft SQL Server pain points?
Why ask? This helps narrow the focus and develop a relationship with the customer. It also assists in focusing on how Nutanix can help alleviate those specific pain points and gives information about how the solution can be shown to resolve those particular pain points.
Oracle
1. License Entitlement ( Cores/NUPS/ELA/ULA/bundled licensing)?
Why ask? Oracle licensing is expensive and customers want to make the best use of their entitlement when replatforming and not spend more $$ on new licensing when doing a new solution. Customers are also looking forward to reducing their Oracle License overhead .
2. Type of Licensing used? : STD / Enterprise and other options (RAC/Partitioning …etc.). Each is a paid item.
Why ask? There may be possibilities to eliminate some Options by using Nutanix Features such as Compression, Encryption, Replication
3. Is the customer ready to run a “SQL script” or provide details of the environment using RVTools/Collector?
Why ask? When inventorying an Oracle DB environment, you can use the Automatic Workload Repository (AWR) report to gather detailed inventory and performance statistics for an Oracle Database. Nutanix has an AWR script that can be run to capture the necessary information and is able to be downloaded from within the Sizer Tool. When adding a Workload select Import, then click the AWR tab and you will see the AWR SQL Script download link. Once run, you can then upload the output using the Upload File option.
4. What are the main pain points in the current environment?
5. When moving to Nutanix would you consider AHV as a hypervisor?
6. Have you been introduced to Era?
Era
1. How do you do DB provisioning today and how long does it take to provision a multi-node database cluster?
Why ask : To find out customer operational efficiency for provisioning . Era can help improve this from weeks to hours.
2. How many dev/test copies of databases do you have for a your PROD instance(s)?
Why ask : Customers make multiple “full copies” of PROD for test-dev dev/test and use up to 5-10 times the space they need . Era will help in creating space optimized clones of database with “rapid speed”
3. What is your typical clone refresh interval and time it takes to refresh a DB clone?
Why ask: Customers using traditional techniques to refresh a copy of a database from a RMAN backup , takes multiple hours and is usually done once a month . With Era , they can clone everyday or multiple times a day in minutes.
4. How do you do your Database Patching (Oracle)?
Why ask : Oracle patching is a huge pain point in large Oracle environments. Era provides a unique way to do “fleet patching” which will help save 100’s of man hours spent in traditional patching
5. How do you migrate Databases when required ( Oracle)?
Why ask : Migration is an involved process and a lot of planning and time is required for migration.
Era provides an easy method to “replicate & migrate” databases (Same version) for same-endian formats. ( Linux->Linux or Windows ->Linux)
6. What is your choice of Database Replication (infrastructure/database/hypervisor based)? Please elaborate. * (Depending on the complexity of the environment, this would warrant further discussion with a Database Specialist/Solutions Architect)
Why ask: customers are looking to reduce their software licensing cost of database replication and will look for opportunities to replicate using infrastructure (nutanix replication) . era enables cross-cluster replication including replicating to a NTNX cluster in AWS cloud in an upcoming release 2.0