September 6, 2012 at 7:53 am
We have an existing sqlserver instance in production. We have a need to add another instance to the same production box for another application. I realize the new instance will have to be a name instance, but my question is
1. Should I request a maintenance window from the users of the existing 'default' instance and only install the new (named) instance while the existing instance/application is down? or can just go ahead with the install of the additional instance while the production instance is up and being accessed online without impacting it?
September 6, 2012 at 8:48 am
Maintenance window - or are you absolutely certain that the installation will run perfectly and can guarantee success first time?
You need to plan for this installation giving you problems, just in case it does. So if you can, have a generous maintenance window, a plan for installation and a plan for reversing it, should it not go as desired.
As for having no impact on the existing instance - will the drives that are working for the current instance also be involved in the installation of the new instance? Even the act of installing additional files for the new instance may require those drives to do additional work and (depending upon the workload) this may have an impact on the existing system.
Just out of idle curiosity - are you certain that this new application requires another instance?
September 6, 2012 at 8:51 am
I'm with Braindonor:
I'd lean towards no instance at all.
just add a database to the server, create the user for the application with the appropriate permissions.
one instance with multiple databases is much, much better than trying to devide the total machine resources between two instances.
the vendor may think it's own instance is needed,because they like the idea of "this is my instance for my app" but that's not the case in real life.
Lowell
September 6, 2012 at 9:30 am
Thank you for your reply. Atcually I did reommend just adding a new DB to the existing instance, but my manager wanted a whole new Instance with the justification that in case of a restart is needed for one that it won't affect the other.
September 7, 2012 at 1:33 am
How often do you normally have to re-start your current instance? I've had to restart our development environment (which gets an inordinate amount of abuse from the developers) once in the past few months and that was because a Service Pack required the restart.
Other servers have had to be restarted more times due to hardware problems than anything to do with SQL Server.
Having an extra instance isn't a problem, but it does add (albeit slightly these days) to the management overhead. It's just one more thing that you don't really need to do. If you go down the path of one application per instance you will eventually have a more complex structure than you actually need. Although out of my experience, I would imagine that you could encounter performance issues eventually, if your instances each have their system databases on the same physical devices. That could be worth doing some research about.
September 7, 2012 at 1:48 am
You'll typically install a new instance for a database when there are different security requirements or performance requirements.
Some applications such as Blackberry ES are best off ring fenced due to their security reqs this would also give you the ability to reduce the resources available (CPU, Memory) to this application so it does not swamp the host.
Is this case similar to your scenario?
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