SQL Server 2008 R2 : Configuring Resource Governor (part 1) - Enabling Resource Governor, Defining Resource Pools

Enabling Resource Governor

Before you can begin creating your resource pools, you need to enable the Resource Governor first. To enable Resource Governor in SSMS, in Object Explorer, expand the Management node, right-click on the Resource Governor node, and select Enable (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Enabling Resource Governor in SSMS.

Alternatively, you can also enable Resource Governor by using the ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR command in T-SQL:

ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR RECONFIGURE

When Resource Governor is not enabled, the RECONFIGURE option enables Resource Governor. Enabling Resource Governor has the following results:

• The classifier function, if defined, is executed for new connections so that their workload can be assigned to workload groups.

• The resource limits specified in the Resource Governor configuration are honored and enforced.

• Any connections that existed before Resource Governor was enabled are now affected by any configuration changes made when Resource Governor was disabled.

When Resource Governor is already enabled, the RECONFIGURE option must be executed to apply any configuration changes made using the CREATE|ALTER|DROP WORKLOAD GROUP or CREATE|ALTER|DROP RESOURCE POOL statements.

To determine whether Resource Governor is currently enabled, you can run a SELECT statement against the sys.resource_governor_configuration system catalog table to view the is_enabled column:

select is_enabled from sys.resource_governor_configuration
go

is_enabled
----------
1

To determine whether any RESOURCE GOVERNOR configuration changes are pending, you can use the sys.dm_resource_governor_configuration dynamic management view (DMV):

select is_reconfiguration_pending
from sys.dm_resource_governor_configuration
go

is_reconfiguration_pending
-----------------------------
0

To disable Resource Governor, right-click on the Resource Governor node and select Disable or execute the following command in T-SQL:

ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR DISABLE

Defining Resource Pools

When setting up a Resource Pool, you have to specify a name for the pool and set its properties. The properties available for a resource pool are

• Name— The name used to refer to the resource pool

• Minimum CPU %— The guaranteed average CPU bandwidth for all requests to the resource pool when there is CPU contention

• Maximum CPU %— The maximum average CPU bandwidth for all requests to the resource pool when there is CPU contention

• Min Memory %— The guaranteed minimum amount of memory reserved for the resource pool that cannot be shared with other resource pools

• Max Memory %— The total server memory that can be used by requests to the resource pool

Creating a Resource Pool in SSMS

The following steps walk you through using SSMS to create a resource pool named ReportPool that you’ll configure for handling report query workloads:

1.	In Object Explorer, expand the Management node for a SQL Server Instance and expand the Resource Governor node.
2.	Right-click on Resource Pools and select New Resource Pool to open the Resource Governor Properties page (see Figure 2). Figure 2. Creating a resource pool in SSMS.
3.	In the Resource Pools grid, click the first column in the empty row. This row is labeled with an asterisk (*). Note If the Resource Pools grid does not have a row labeled with an asterisk, Resource Governor has not been enabled yet. You can enable Resource Governor without leaving the Resource Governor Properties page by putting a check mark in the Enable Resource Governor check box.
4.	Double-click the empty cell in the Name column. Type in the name that you want to use for the resource pool. For this example, use the name ReportPool.
5.	Set the CPU and Memory resource values. In this example, leave the Min CPU % and Min Memory % values at 0 and configure the Max CPU % and Max Memory % values at 20 and 30, respectively.
6.	To create the pool and exit the dialog, click OK.

To verify that the new pool was created, you expand the Resource Pools folder under the Resource Governor node and look for a node named ReportPool. Alternatively, you can run a query against the sys.resource_governor_resource_pools dynamic management view, similar to the following, which also displays the resource pool configuration:

select name,
       min_cpu_percent as MinCPU,
       max_cpu_percent as MaxCPU,
       min_memory_percent as 'MinMEM%' ,
       max_memory_percent as 'MaxMEM%'
from sys.resource_governor_resource_pools
go

name       MinCPU MaxCPU MinMEM% MaxMEM%
---------- ------ ------ ------- -------
internal   0      100    0       100
default    0      100    0       100
ReportPool 0      20     0       30

Creating a Resource Pool in T-SQL

Now that you’ve set up the ReportPool resource pool in SSMS, you are able to set up a second resource pool, OLTPPool, using T-SQL. The command to create a resource pool, CREATE RESOURCE POOL, takes four arguments: MIN_CPU_PERCENT, MAX_CPU_PERCENT, MIN_MEMORY_PERCENT, and MAX_MEMORY_PERCENT. After creating the resource pool, you need to run ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR RECONFIGURE to apply the new resource pool:

CREATE RESOURCE POOL OLTPPool
   WITH
        (min_cpu_percent=80,
         max_cpu_percent=100,
         min_memory_percent=75,
         max_memory_percent=100)
GO
ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR RECONFIGURE;
GO

Now that you’ve defined the resource pools needed, the next step is to define your workload groups and associate them with a resource pool.