Calculator for SQL 2005 Hardware Requirements

[xrapidx]

Anyone know where I can get a decent calculator for calculating the server requirements for a SQL Database solution?

Server will also host an ASP.NET front-end.

 

[masticore]

Anyone know where I can get a decent calculator for calculating the server requirements for a SQL Database solution?

Server will also host an ASP.NET front-end.

Not a calculator per se, but useful info (may be a bit too basic): http://searchsqlserver.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid87_gci1157390,00.html

A "calculator" could only ever make a generic guess. Hardware requirements depend on your business requirements - e.g. is a 4-second response time acceptable or must it be sub-second (CPU and RAM)? To what degree must your data's accessibility be guaranteed (JBOD, RAID, SAN)? Are lookup tables going to remain on disk or are they going to be pinned (RAM)?

Also consider licensing in your hardware requirements - most databases can be licensed by users or by CPUs, so consider:
- if you're licensing by CPUs is it per core or per socket
- it'll be more expensive to license by CPU on higher spec hardware

There are loads of other questions and considerations.

my 2c

 

[Conradl]

I don't think you get something like that. SQL is IO intensive, so you would have to calculate the IO requirements and then find a storage solution that delivers to those particular requirements. Also WRT RAM and CPU, you would have to determine a baseline based on the exact activity and then extrapolate that to a production system, based on a certain number of users.

If possible install on a test platform, gather some useful information, and then make a decision on the type of hardware to purchase.

How many users are you looking at?

 

[xrapidx]

I recall many years ago you got something like this - can't find it.

I suppose these days things are a lot more complex....

BTW - sub-second response is required.

 

[Conradl]

I recall many years ago you got something like this - can't find it.

I suppose these days things are a lot more complex....

BTW - sub-second response is required.

If performance is important then I would definitely look at a test environment that can be used to gather specific data to spec the server....

 

[masticore]

I recall many years ago you got something like this - can't find it.

I suppose these days things are a lot more complex....

BTW - sub-second response is required.

Not trying to be difficult, but without more information that's a meaningless requirement:
- how many objects is the server handling (databases, tables, indexes, etc)
- how much data is being stored & read (100 rows, 10000000 rows)
- what kind of data is being stored (e.g. character based data is not as efficiently handled as numeric data; xLOBs are nightmarish)
- how efficient is the database design (properly (de)normalised, properly indexed, lotsa triggers, etc)
- how efficient are the queries (lotsa LIKE statements?)
- how many lusers have you let loose on your database ("1 is too many..." )
- what do the different lusers do (transactional users impact the server differently to report users)
- how is the application written (does it use hitlists or full table reads)
- what's the backup strategy in use (you DO have one, right?)

These are just some questions - off the top of my head - that I'd want answered before beginning to consider sizing. The answers to the questions will lead to more questions, etc, etc.