Accelerate Breakout Replay: What’s New in SQL Server 2025: AI, Performance, and Pure Storage Optimization
Explore SQL Server 2025’s AI, vector search, REST support, and see how Pure Storage boosts performance for modern database workloads. Speaker: Anthony Nocentino https://www.purestorage.com/video/webinars/whats-new-in-sql-server-2025/6375342106112.htmlDatabase Performance Unleashed: Where AI and Enterprise Meet
August 12 | Register Now! 11:00AM PT • 2:00PM ET This month, host Andrew Miller invites SQL DBA and Microsoft MVP Anthony Nocentino (Senior Principal Field Solutions Architect at Pure Storage) to the virtual breakroom for the third time. We’ll cover: The AI Shift into enterprise databases - Something many didn’t expect but makes sense once you dig into the reasons RAG architectures and relational databases - Exploring AI-ready, secure, and high-performance features Vector indexing in SQL Server 2025 and Oracle 23 AI - Real world reasons to use SQL Server (for instance) as a Vector Datastore FlashArray™ performance testing and data - So much performance for all workloads and especially databases. We’ll also share the results of recent performance testing from Pure Storage and its newest, fastest ever FlashArray - FlashArray//XL™ 170 R5 As always, we’ll keep it educational while exploring how Pure Storage offers capabilities and products that benefit you. The team will stay on after the webinar to answer any questions. LIVE RAFFLE: One lucky attendee will win a Coffee Lover Set (approx. value $132.16). See Terms and Conditions.Accelerate Breakout Replay: Accelerate Enterprise AI with Your SQL and Oracle Operational Databases
Demystify AI for storage pros: explore RAG, embeddings, and vector indexing in SQL Server 2025 and Oracle 23ai. Speakers: Anthony Nocentino & Ryan Arsenault https://www.purestorage.com/video/webinars/accelerate-enterprise-ai-sql-oracle/6375340112112.html
Using FlashArray Volume Snapshots with Microsoft SQL Server
FlashArray volume snapshots are an amazing tool for any DBA/DBRE managing SQL Server. You can use them to: Instantly recover from user errors or ransomware attacks Create rapid dev/test copies without full restores Offload CHECKDB to another host to avoid production performance hits Refresh reporting environments on demand Seed Always On availability groups faster, without large full backups Enable point-in-time recovery when paired with SQL log backups And the best part? Snapshots on FlashArray are: Immutable Space-efficient Fast to create and restore Fully automatable through the REST API or SDK tools! I worked very closely with our SQL Server field super stars (Anthony Nocentino, Andrew Pruski and Andrew Yun) on a white paper going VERY deep into the architecture and how to. It includes everything from crash- vs. application-consistent snapshots, to step-by-step restore and cloning procedures, to using SQL Server 2022’s new T-SQL snapshot backup. Did we miss anything ? Let us know!New Reference Architecture: SQL Server on Azure VM's with Pure Cloud Block Store
This is a brand new, weeks-old reference architecture — and I’m really excited about this one. During development, one of the most surprising discoveries was just how much Azure VM performance is limited by the IOPS cap tied to managed disks. It caught me off guard how much planning it takes just to size storage and compute together when you go the native route. With CBS, I was able to bypass those constraints. It felt more like working with enterprise storage (which is what its meant to do!) , I could pull from a pool, scale performance independently of VM size, and provision storage volumes in a clean and easy way. This new RA covers: SQL Server architecture on Azure VMs with Pure Cloud Block Store Snapshot-based backup and restore DR patterns using ActiveDR™ and HA using ActiveCluster™ Dev/test database cloning with volume snapshots Performance benchmarking vs. Azure Premium SSD v2 It prooved: ~40% more transactional throughput (TPROC-C) ~93% better analytical query performance (TPROC-H) (using queries per minute normalization) 3–5x data reduction vs. raw data Download the full reference architecture here Would love to hear your thoughts on this architecture and how we could improve the expirience!New SQL Server with Pure Storage Reference Architecture!
We have a new SQL Server with Pure Storage Reference Architecture! It’s been out for a few months, but this is a great start to your journey to a simpler, high-performance database environment! This reference architecture shows how to: Consolidate transactional and analytical SQL Server workloads using FlashArray Use FlashBlade for rapid, parallel T-SQL backups to file or object storage Enable zero-downtime operations with ActiveCluster and near-synchronous replication via ActiveDR With this RA you will find detailed technical guidance for storage provisioning for SQL Server databases on Windows or Linux as well as best practice guidence on how to take the best advantage of the primary storage layer. Check out the full reference architecture here: Optimizing SQL Server Operations and Scale with Pure Storage (PDF) Have feedback, use cases to share, or questions about implementation? Please reach out!On-Demand Webinar: Get Ready for SQL Server 2025 with Pure Storage
SQL Server 2025 is coming. Watch this on-demand webinar to get insights into how the Pure Storage platform can directly support key database priorities: accelerating AI and analytics close to the data, sustaining predictable performance under pressure, and enabling reliable backup, recovery, and HA/DR patterns that SQL Server was built to support.
