SQL Always on Cluster Solutions for HA
Challenge
As a telework remote access tool, the customer had been using VMware’s Horizon Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Cloud POD Architecture as an option to provide its 50,000 end - users the ability to work remotely. However, as much as the VMware Horizon Cloud POD Architecture is designed with High Availability, the database server where the App Volumes database was hosted at a single location, making it vulnerable to a site outage. The customer turned to Atlas Tech to architect a solution to allow VDI end users access to their applications regardless of a planned or unplanned outage at one of the POD locations.
Atlas Solution
Atlas Tech engineers looked to VMware best practices for App Volumes and Microsoft architecture principles in determining a solution using SQL Always - On clusters. This required no App Volumes - specific configuration requirements or deviations from Microsoft best practices in part due to the utilization of native Windows ODBC to connect to the SQL database.
The SQL Always - On cluster solution involved multiple subnets due to the geo - dispersed architecture of the SQL nodes and the customer network architecture possessing no shared subnets spanning across all datacenter locations. Atlas Tech led the design and implementation with the goal of ensuring that all the App Volumes servers across the customer network share a primary server in the cluster, but secondary nodes are ready to accept the failover if the primary node becomes unavailable.
Results
- 24/7 uptime for the SQL database that is utilized by the App Volumes servers at all customer VDI sites
- Compliance with multiple regulating vulnerability management directives
- Enhancement of the overall Horizon VDI Cloud POD with the ability to scale up additional secondary nodes