How to Simplify an Upgrade to SQL Server 2014

by Michelle McLean, posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Last week, Microsoft hosted a webinar on how to simplify the upgrade to SQL Server 2014. Microsoft’s senior services engineer, Michael Schaeffer, led off the discussion, highlighting how ScaleArc helped his team upgrade to SQL Server 2014 for the answers.microsoft.com website. Then ScaleArc’s founder and CTO, Varun Singh, gave a demo of the ScaleArc database load balancing software. Both presenters got some great questions along the way.

Microsoft's Own SQL Server Upgrade

by Michelle McLean, posted on Friday, February 13, 2015

Microsoft sponsored a webinar earlier this week to highlight how its answers.microsoft.com site upgraded from SQL Server 2008 to 2014. The services engineer who led the project, Michael Schaeffer, did a fantastic job outlining the challenges and the options for overcoming those issues on the call. Anyone looking to adopt 2014 and AlwaysOn will get some great lessons learned from Michael.

ScaleArc's Role in Cybersecurity

by Justin Barney, posted on Tuesday, January 27, 2015

One of our existing enterprise customers recently saw the security team take ownership of some of the ScaleArc deployments. The reasons, they pointed out, were the unique benefits that ScaleArc provides for making application environments more secure.

Microsoft - A Great Collaboration

by Michelle McClean, posted on Friday, January 23, 2015

When you’re in marketing, the “launch” is always a blast. Be it product, campaign, event, or new messaging, it’s just a rush to see it out there in the marketplace.

This week we had the absolute delight of a very special launch – some great joint marketing with Microsoft that we’ve been developing for several months.

Customer Spotlight: ScaleArc Goes to the Mat for Customer DDP Yoga

by Michelle McLean, posted on Friday, January 16, 2015

Even people who’ve never taken a yoga class have heard about “Downward Dog” and “Child’s Pose,” and they’ve probably heard the gentle greeting “Namaste.” But when’s the last time you heard a Yogi talking about wrestling or “database load balancing software"?

More Kudos for ScaleArc for SQL Server!

by Michelle McLean, posted on Tuesday, January 6, 2015

What a great way to start 2015, with our database load balancing software winning yet another industry award –  TMC's Data Center Award. It’s exciting to have our industry-pioneering software noted by these industry experts as moving the state of the data center forward.

Going Wide With ScaleArc! - Reflection on Customer Visits

by Justin Barney, posted on Wednesday, December 10, 2014

This week a group of us are at one of our larger customers, a computer/electronics manufacturing company ranked in the top 100 of the Fortune 500 list. We’ve been providing 100% uptime for their eCommerce site for the last 14+ months, delivering local and global database load balancing while also making their website 2X faster and lowering overall Capex and Opex costs. It’s been a home run deployment with a fantastic customer.

Leaving Las Vegas: Observations from the Gartner Data Center Conference

by Michelle McLean, posted on Monday, December 8, 2014

I’m just back from spending last week in Vegas at the Gartner data center conference, and I found two themes really critical to a majority of the tracks:

• The need for bi-modal IT. For more static apps and functions – so-called systems of record – IT needs to operate in Mode 1, the traditional approach of longer planning, diligent governance, and slower timing. But to become  a Digital Enterprise, where IT is the business, driving new sources of revenue and engaging directly with the enterprise’s customers, IT needs to also operate in Model 2, to rapidly create systems of innovation. This mode, staff by a different skill set, needs fast development, with appropriate but smaller governance, and rapid innovation of short-lived apps. This mode brings the agility and adaptability – and ultimately competitiveness – that organizations need to differentiate.
• The need for non-stop IT. Disaster recovery is no longer enough – you’ve got to deliver continuous availability. With downtime unacceptable, you need to architect for active/active operations.

Best Practices for Upgrading to SQL Server 2014

by Michelle McLean, posted on Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Recently, we joined the folks at SQL Server Pro in hosting a webinar on Best Practices for Upgrading to SQL Server 2014. The topic sparked a great conversation – you can listen to the recording, and we’ve captured the high points of the discussion and attendee questions here.

Michael Otey, senior technical director at SQL Server Pro, took the audience through the benefits 2014 brings, the technical requirements for supporting the updated version, and some of the challenges in adopting AlwaysOn. Along the way, the SQL Server Pro audience asked some great questions.

Solving SQL Server's HA Problem

by Michelle McLean, posted on Monday, November 24, 2014

Gartner released its annual Magic Quadrant for “operational databases” a few weeks ago. The report covers both SQL and NoSQL database providers. Since ScaleArc supports a number of the databases in the report – SQL Server, Oracle, and flavors of MySQL – we’re always interested to see Gartner’s analysis of the providers.

You can check out a full copy of the report by requesting a download from Microsoft’s site.

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