What administration action can help maintain consistent performance in a Nutanix cluster under heavy SQL workloads?

Setting compression on virtual disks (vDisks) can help maintain consistent performance in a Nutanix cluster under heavy SQL workloads, particularly because it can optimize the use of storage resources. Compression reduces the amount of data stored on disk, which can lead to lower I/O operations and improved read/write efficiencies. This is especially beneficial in environments with heavy database transactions, such as those running SQL workloads, where data retrieval speed and storage efficiency are crucial.

By compressing the data, the system may reduce the physical footprint of the data being processed, which in turn can lead to better performance as less input/output (I/O) time is required to read or write data. In scenarios where the database is subject to high levels of concurrent access, optimized storage can significantly impact overall throughput and response times.

Other factors such as load balancing, manual storage tiering, and deduplication do play roles in cluster performance management. Load balancing helps ensure that tasks are distributed evenly across the nodes, manual storage tiering can optimize data access based on performance requirements, and deduplication saves storage space by eliminating duplicate data. However, these methods do not directly address the compression needs of high-demand SQL workloads in the same specific manner as compression on vDisks does.