Malaysian Mobile Technology Enabler Enhances Database Operations, through Software Upgrades

MACROKIOSK, a leading enabler of mobile technologies in Malaysia, recently upgraded its database server software to SQL Server 2008. The company, which offers a broad range of mobile solutions and telecommunications services to Malaysian mobile network providers, had been using SQL Server 2005 for about five years. This platform was reaching the end of its product lifecycle in April 2011, and MACROKIOSK had been advised by their Technical Account Manager (TAM) to upgrade to SQL Server 2008. The proposed benefit of this was to ensure that Microsoft Premier Support could continue to provide MACROKIOSK with a full spectrum of support options, including 24-by-7 technical support and on-site service whenever necessary. MACROKIOSK performed the upgrade, and experienced significant improvements including a reduction in their system’s hardware requirements, and a faster end-user experience.

Situation

With customers across a broad spectrum of industries that include financial services, telecommunications, aviation, healthcare, tourism and hospitality, advertising and marketing, retail and many more,  MACROKIOSK has grown its business revenue from just RM7,000 in Financial Year 2001, to RM86 million in Financial Year 2011.

MACROKIOSK’s servers are the hardware for its Global Mobile Messaging Network, etracker, which has established direct 2-way connectivity with more than 500 mobile operators worldwide. The company offers 2-way bulk and premium messaging alongside other comprehensive mobile services, namely authentication, financial, aviation and monetization. Additionally, MACROKIOSK also offers a broad range of mobile telecommunications solutions to Malaysian mobile network operators, such as Maxis and Celcom besides many others around the region.

MACROKIOSK had been using the Microsoft Windows platform to support its growing business in delivering value added services to customers globally. Around 2006, MACROKIOSK began using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 as its database solution.  Microsoft SQL Server 2005 provided many features including database partitioning, which led to operational efficiencies.

A close relationship with Microsoft Premier Support Services ensured that SQL Server design, architecture, setup, and configuration, were aligned to maintain a fast throughput of data while maintaining security. MACROKIOSK also leveraged Microsoft Consulting Services to develop coding practices in accordance with the SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), Enterprise Library, and Layering concepts, in order to adopt best practices in its database maintenance strategy. This integrated approach to optimizing its adoption of Microsoft products and value-added services helped MACROKIOSK to ensure that it obtained the most from its adoption of the SQL Server platform.

As its business continued to grow, MACROKIOSK wanted to enhance the performance of its relational database management system. The company began considering alternatives to Microsoft SQL Server 2005. As part of MACROKIOSK’s upgrade exercise, the company wanted to get more out of its relational database management system (RDBMS) by implementing Table Partitioning and Table Replication, to improve system performance and system availability.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 was reaching the end of its product lifecycle in April 2011, and MACROKIOSK had been advised by their Microsoft Premier Support Technical Account Manager (TAM) to upgrade to Microsoft SQL Server 2008. The proposed benefit of this was to ensure that Microsoft Premier Support could continue to provide MACROKIOSK with a full spectrum of support options, including 24-by-7 technical support and on-site service whenever necessary.

Solution

As Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (“Denali”) was not yet in the market, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 was the natural solution for MACROKIOSK. The company’s technology skill set was already on the Microsoft SQL Server platform. Furthermore from a purely financial point of view, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 proved to meet MACROKIOSK’s requirements better than any other alternative database solution, while providing features such as Data Mirroring and Snapshots.

MACROKIOSK and Microsoft spent a month to plan and prepare for the upgrade. Two entire weeks were invested in testing various scenarios, to ensure a smooth migration from the old platform to the new. The team began by copying all configurations settings from the live Microsoft SQL Server 2005 system to a new Microsoft SQL Server 2008 system. All system entities were listed and tracked closely. Practice drills were conducted before the actual migration, for example, the team was able to test existing applications with a test version of the incoming Microsoft SQL Server 2008 environment, before the actual migration.

During the preparatory phase, some advisory cases were conducted with Microsoft Premier Support, and the assistance of the TAM. Microsoft Premier Support shared knowledge and experience from previous migrations. Through short sessions, over time, the MACROKIOSK team checked with Microsoft Premier Support to confirm known migration issues that needed to be avoided. The MACROKIOSK team encountered some issues when testing the migration of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) to SQL Server 2008. Error-logs and screenshots were sent to Microsoft Premier Support, and after a few cycles of communication, the problem was resolved instantaneously.

Migration of databases prior to the deployment of the database management system was a fairly simple task. For smaller databases, the team would detach a database file from a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service, and reattached it to a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Service. That was all that needed to be done for the migration. For larger databases, the team did a full backup of the database file first, then copied the backup file to a new server, and restored the database from the backup file onto the new Microsoft SQL Server 2008 system. This was done prior to the migration of applications that used the database. The backup, transfer, and restoration of their largest databases took about three hours each, and each was about 100 gigabytes in size.

The final migration process was a hands-on process for the MACROKIOSK team. With minimal participation from Microsoft, MACROKIOSK was able to migrate to Microsoft SQL Server 2008, taking a total of just four hours to complete without incident. The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor flagged no errors, and the migration was fuss-free. The team was able to easily understand what needed to be done.

The MACROKIOSK team’s challenges were typical to their experiences in platform migration activities. The team had to perform a thorough planning process, execute various test cases, and anticipate the unexpected before actually migrating to Microsoft SQL Server 2008. The migration was completed in May 2011.

“An important factor was our history and relationship with Microsoft over the past decade, while we were using SQL Server 2005,” said Ms. Joanna Hew, MACROKIOSK’s Chief Technology Officer, “Microsoft has consistently proven itself to be a reliable and trusted partner to MACROKIOSK, and we place great value in working with them, as we continue to grow our business and expand our services.”

Benefit

The MACROKIOSK team has gained improved productivity, and efficiency in operations, from its migration to SQL Server 2008.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 offered several new features like table partitioning, table replication, index view, data compression, data mirroring, and snapshot that would support MACROKIOSK’s growing business needs. In deciding to upgrade their database infrastructure to Microsoft SQL Server 2008, MACROKIOSK evaluated a number of factors. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 led both in terms of product features and affordability.

Higher Performance and Availability

Database Partitioning in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 had improved performance, but with the Table ¬¬Partitioning feature in Microsoft SQL Server 2008, this was taken to the next level. It was now possible to split each database table across multiple physical devices, and thereby Table Partitioning increased query executions speeds by up to 100%.

On the same machines, processor (CPU) utilization with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 was at about 80% and with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 this has dropped to about 10%. It is accurate to say that MACROKIOSK’s Microsoft SQL Server 2008 deployments consume about an eighth (1/8) the CPU requirements of the company’s previous Microsoft SQL Server 2005 deployment.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008’s Table Replication and Peer-to-peer Replication features were also found to be impressive. Data Mirroring to an offsite location, combined with a fail-over configuration, further enabled MACROKIOSK to improve the availability of its databases in case of partial systems failure.

Reduced Hardware Requirements

When compared with Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 was able to perform faster backups, and produce compressed backup files that were smaller. MACROKIOSK experiences, on average, about 20 million new transaction records being generated per month. To-date the company manages about 3.8 terabytes of data, and has up to 200 users querying this data. While uncompressed in-production data is of the same size as before, the MACROKIOSK team has seen a 50% reduction in the size of compressed backup database files.

Easier Administration

The MACROKIOSK team was pleased that it did not face any major issues after migration, as most of the database commands were the same. During migration, the team was able to backup and restore databases on separate machines, detach databases from Microsoft SQL Server 2005, then directly attach them to Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

An improved user-interface for database administrators further enabled MACROKIOSK to increase productivity and efficiency in its operations through enhanced management tools as well as simpler maintenance procedures. Among these were automatic error highlighting in input consoles, and an auto-suggest/auto-complete feature that takes effect when administrators are entering commands, called IntelliSense.

“SQL Server 2008 is loaded with tools and features that help us get more done, with less effort,” said Hew.

Additionally, when compared with Microsoft SQL Server 2005, maintenance for certain features was made simpler in Microsoft SQL Server 2008. For example, the new Data Collector, a database health analyzer, was able to identify table or tables that were sluggish, and offer configuration recommendations to improve their performance.

Improved End-user Experience

During and after the migration, MACROKIOSK’s customers experienced no reductions in service levels, as the migration occurred transparently. Nevertheless, MACROKIOSK’s customers’ expectations were also exceeded, thanks to a noticeable improvement in self-service report-generation speeds, which depend on MACROKIOSK’s database management system.

“We were surprised when customers’ gave us positive feedback on the upgraded system. Customers said that they could now generate reports in half the time. We traced this improvement to performance enhancements received from Table Partitioning,” said Ms. Pang Ai Li, Assistant Manager, Database Administration on MACROKIOSK’s Technology Development team.