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sql-server-linux-configure-pmem.md

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title Configure persistent memory (PMEM) for SQL Server on Linux
description This article provides a walk-through for configuring PMEM on Linux.
ms.custom seo-lt-2019
author briancarrig
ms.author brcarrig
ms.reviewer vanto
ms.date 11/04/2019
ms.topic conceptual
ms.prod sql
ms.technology linux
monikerRange >= sql-server-linux-ver15 || >= sql-server-ver15 || = sqlallproducts-allversions

How to configure persistent memory (PMEM) for SQL Server on Linux

[!INCLUDEappliesto-ss-xxxx-xxxx-xxx-md-linuxonly]

This article describes how to configure the persistent memory (PMEM) for SQL Server on Linux. PMEM support on Linux was introduced in SQL Server 2019.

Overview

SQL Server 2016 introduced support for Non-Volatile DIMMs, and an optimization called Tail of the Log Caching on NVDIMM. These optimizations reduced the number of operations needed to harden a log buffer to persistent storage. This leverages Windows Server direct access to a persistent memory device in DAX mode.

SQL Server 2019 extends the support for persistent memory (PMEM) devices to Linux, providing full enlightenment of data and transaction log files placed on PMEM. Enlightenment refers to the method of access to the storage device using efficient user-space memcpy() operations. Rather than going through the file system and storage stack, SQL Server leverages DAX support on Linux to directly place data into devices, which reduces latency.

Enable enlightenment of database files

To enable enlightenment of database files in SQL Server on Linux, follow the following steps:

  1. Configure the devices.

In Linux, use the ndctl utility.

  • Install ndctl to configure PMEM device. You can find it here.
  • Use [ndctl] to create a namespace.
ndctl create-namespace -f -e namespace0.0 --mode=fsdax* --map=mem

Note

If you are using ndctl version lower than 59, use --mode=memory.

Use ndctl to verify the namespace. Sample output follows:

ndctl list
[
  {
    "dev":"namespace0.0",
    "mode":"memory",
    "size":1099511627776,
    "blockdev":"pmem0",
    "numa_node":0
  }
]

  • Create and mount PMEM device

    For example, with XFS

    mkfs.xfs -f /dev/pmem0
mount -o dax,noatime /dev/pmem0 /mnt/dax
xfs_io -c "extsize 2m" /mnt/dax

    For example, with EXT4

    mkfs.ext4 -b 4096 -E stride=512 -F /dev/pmem0
mount -o dax,noatime /dev/pmem0 /mnt/dax

Once the device has been configured with ndctl, formatted and mounted, you can place database files in it. You can also create a new database

  1. Since PMEM devices are O_DIRECT safe, enable trace flag 3979 to disable the forced flush mechanism. This trace flag is a startup trace flag, and as such needs to be enabled using the mssql-conf utility. Please note that this is a server-wide configuration change, and you should not use this trace flag if you have any O_DIRECT non-compliant devices that need the forced flush mechanism to ensure data integrity. For more information see https://support.microsoft.com/help/4131496/enable-forced-flush-mechanism-in-sql-server-2017-on-linux

  2. Restart SQL Server.

Next steps

For more information about SQL Server on Linux, see SQL Server on Linux.