IN AN INCREASINGLY complex world with growing amounts of data, global supply chains can be difficult to navigate. At the forefront of this challenge—and solving it—is Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC). With 730 vessels that dock at over 500 ports MSC is the largest operator of container ships in the world.
The logistics are extraordinary, merging physical movement, digital tracking and route optimization, and complicated transactions sometimes involving more than three dozen parties. To stay on top of the vast amounts of data, governance issues, and security concerns that permeate the shipping industry, MSC relies on Microsoft SQL Server 2022 to make sure the global supply chain operates securely and on time.
“Without solid IT services, nothing of this kind would be possible,” says Javier Villegas, IT Director for DBA and BI Service at Mediterranean Shipping Company. “With the SQL Server 2022, we [can] continue down the same path of increasing the capability and allowing us to keep growing the success of our business.”
For companies like MSC, SQL Server 2022 has been a game changer for gaining a competitive advantage. Introduced last year, SQL Server 2022 is optimized for Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, thanks to a close collaboration between Microsoft and Intel® engineers. The system is at the forefront of Microsoft’s broader vision for an end-to-end data platform that provides customers with operational databases, analytics and governance, and the ability to seamlessly bridge on-premises deployments to the cloud. In addition to being more connected to the cloud, it also includes upgrades to query processing, security, and disaster recovery—providing a holistic opportunity for companies to harness data and leverage it for immediate growth.
“SQL Server 2022 is taking us and our clients leaps and bounds ahead into the future,” says Bob Ward, Principal Architect for the Microsoft Azure Data team.
A Data Platform that Keeps Up with a Changing World
Today, businesses are increasingly leveraging hybrid and multi-cloud approaches to achieve digital transformation, an arrangement that offers a distinct set of challenges. Microsoft, which has been a leader in data management for more than 30 years, developed the SQL Server engine to evolve with its customers and meet them where they are, offering solutions on-premises, in the cloud, at the edge, and in hybrid environments.
“Our driving force is to ensure that a customer’s data is where they need it to be, whether that’s due to customer preferences, regulatory requirements, or just ease of use,” says Ward. “With every version of SQL Server, we want to give them the same tools to gather and explore the data wherever they need it, all while keeping it safe.”
To meet this demand for cloud-native features in databases that can’t move to the cloud, whether because of government regulations or data sovereignty issues, SQL Server 2022 allows customers to bring Azure capabilities to their SQL Server with Azure Arc. Essentially, Azure Arc acts as a bridge to extend the Microsoft Azure platform to multi-cloud and hybrid environments. With an Azure Arc-enabled SQL Server, customers can manage, secure, and govern data wherever they need to, whether that’s on SQL Servers hosted on physical Windows and Linux servers or on virtual machines hosted outside of Azure on another cloud provider. Ultimately, customers can manage their entire SQL Server in one unified solution that delivers all of Azure’s multilayered security features and improved data governance.
“Today, many of our customers have environments that span multiple data centers and multiple clouds, each with its own set of tools and processes that lead to operational hurdles and costs,” says Ajay Jagannathan, Principal Group Program Manager for Microsoft Azure Data Team. “With Arc-enabled SQL Server, we’re addressing these challenges by bringing the best of Azure capabilities to our customers through a single control plane in Azure. This allows them to manage their entire data estate and optimize operational costs wherever their environment is, without the need to migrate.”
SQL Server 2022 also expanded its suite of managed services through the Azure platform, working seamlessly with the cloud to offer disaster-recovery capabilities, for example, with connections to Azure SQL Managed Instance. In addition, it provides data-governance policies through integration with Microsoft Purview and analytics processing through Azure Synapse Link.
“Synapse Link for SQL Server 2022 helps us to seamlessly replicate operational data in near real time for more powerful analytics,” says Villegas.
To optimize SQL Server 2022 on a hardware level, Microsoft engineers worked closely with Intel®. One innovative outcome is the use of Intel® QuickAssist Technology (QAT) for the SQL engine, a feature that offloads data compression on SQL Server bare-metal platforms or virtual machines. This data-compression technology enables faster online transactional processing operations in SQL Server while reducing impact on the system’s transaction throughput. With QAT enabled, users can also expect database backup speeds that are 230 percent faster, which is critical to helping database administrators and developers get to production more quickly.
Another pain point solved by SQL Server 2022 is a type of query problem called a parameter-sensitive plan. This occurs when a database management system caches a certain search path or plan and uses that cached plan for subsequent queries, which can cause performance problems for non-uniform data distributions. SQL Server 2022 gets around this situation by creating multiple paths, so users running queries aren’t slowing down subsequent users by forcing them to rely on a suboptimal data set.
“It’s a complicated issue,” says Ward, “but SQL heads, the people that use SQL Server every day, know exactly what this is, and they’ll be happy with the fix, because it saves developers and administrators time and money. It’s just another example of how SQL Server 2022 addresses specific items mentioned by our users—and makes things faster and easier overall.”
SQL Server 2022 has already become the default solution for countless companies, and it’s worth noting just how much detail goes into every refresh. It’s a multiyear process, with engineers from Microsoft and Intel® working hand in hand to develop the best product.
“Microsoft SQL Server is one of the most secure and scalable databases, thanks to the deep collaborative efforts between the Intel® and Microsoft engineering teams,” says Hamesh Patel, Principal Engineer at Intel® “Together we push the limits of hardware and software innovation by integrating the innovative Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor features with the latest versions of SQL Server. It’s truly a great partnership that enables us to offer the best to our customers.”
The Future of Data: Insights at Scale
In the future, companies will need to predict and adjust to changing market dynamics and societal shifts at an increasing rate to stay competitive. What will define success? The ability to quickly analyze multiple data points, harness new insights, and then act on that information to grow, from the supply chain to the customer journey to new engagement channels. The future of business intelligence is data—and, more specifically, data management.
The companies that succeed in this era will be the ones that know how multiple data points come together to provide new insight. That understanding is achieved with a database management system that offers speed and flexibility to adapt to any need. Microsoft and Intel® engineers—the folks who spent countless hours developing the innovative features of SQL Server 2022, accelerated by Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors—know this better than anyone.
They also know that enterprises need to do all this cost-effectively. Azure Arc offers a new pay-as-you-go billing method that gives enterprises a cost advantage, too. SQL Server 2022 allows companies to pay by the hour for spikes and ad hoc usage, and also has flexible licensing options. This works wherever a company needs it, whether on-premise or in a third-party cloud.
As with all SQL developments, the pay-as-you-go model enabled by Azure Arc fits into Microsoft’s long-term vision for a do-it-all data platform that’s as flexible—and efficient—as needed.
“Today, every industry is generating data in terabytes and petabytes,” says Ward. “The challenge is not only to make sense of that data, but also to avoid slowing down your performance. The power of SQL Server 2022 is its ability to remain consistently scalable from a performance perspective, no matter how much the data changes—ensuring you’re equipped to grow for the future.”
This story was produced by WIRED Brand Lab for Microsoft and Intel®.
