Great SQL Server Storage advice from a team deploying SQL with LOB apps

During an internal conference this week I came across a group at Microsoft Services that works directly with customers that are deploying SQL Server to support line-of-business applications like like SAP and JD Edwards. They pointed me to their recent blog (started in September 2010) which already produced excellent technical and business content. Out of the 36 posts so far (that’s over 4 a month!) I was most impressed with the quality technical content around SQL Server as it relates to Storage. The tips for LUN creation, advice on SQL data file configuration and guidance on using SQLIO for performance testing are really insightful. Here are some direct links to a few of their posts to get you started:

• Best Practices - SAN LUN Creation and Size Expansion for SAP Architectures
• Best Practices - SAN LUN Creation and Size Expansion for SAP Architectures Continued - Chapter 2
• Using Microsoft SQLIO to Baseline LOB Application Disk Performance
• SQLIO Tips and Tricks for LOB Disk Performance Testing
• Configuring your SQL File Systems
• Monitoring the Performance of your SAP SQL Database Files
• Trace Flag 1117 - A Safety Net You Might Not Be Aware Of
• JD Edwards & SQL 2008 R2 Unicode Compression

This is highly recommended reading for SQL DBAs that want to understand Storage management and for Storage Administrators that want to go deeper on how SQL works. I would definitely recommend adding https://blogs.technet.com/b/lobapps to your blog roll.