April 12, 2006 at 10:37 am
Hi!
I need your advice, is the first time that I will buy a server , I will use sql server 2000.
And the server will be use to support the transaccions of a system that do a proccess very equal to the credit cards.
We have like 40 stores and we will give to our employees a debit card that they can uses to buy in the stores (instead of coupons), if this works we will offert this server to another companies.
My boss tell me that maybe a HP ProLiant DL380 G4 will be ok, but she neather have experiance in this issue.
Any help will be very usesfull to me, I have to order the server this week.
Thanks for your time!
April 12, 2006 at 11:35 am
Hi,
We need information like how many transactions is the server expected to handle every hour or minute. How many users will connect to the server ?
April 12, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Thuan is absolutely correct. You can't guesstimate at hardware requirements without all the details. You can start by reviewing the bare minimum software requirements for whichever version of SQL Server you're planning to run. If the hardware does not meet these requirements, then it's time to move on. If the hardware meets the bare minimum, then you need to begin answering these questions:
-How many users total will have access?
-What is the peak load you anticipate?
-What are the historical data storage and reporting requirements?
-Will you need to run any additional security software (encryption, etc.) on the same box? What are its minimum requirements?
-What about backup and disaster recovery requirements?
-Will any other software be running on the same box?
There are a ton of questions like this that all need to be answered in order to keep from wasting umpteen thousands of dollars on the wrong hardware...
April 12, 2006 at 1:19 pm
How many users total will have access? 40 users
-What is the peak load you anticipate? 28,000 transaccion per day
-What are the historical data storage and reporting requirements?
We are going to safe one record per each transaccion, and we are going to have a main table per employeed that will save the actual information ( like last transaction, actual amount, etc)
We will have a table that have the information of the invoices, an invoice will have the lines that every week, 2 week or monthly the company sent us to charge amount on the cards.
The reports will be: transaction per user, transaction per company, transaction per period of time, and invoice printing ( by the moment)
-Will you need to run any additional security software (encryption, etc.) on the same box?
I will run a antivirus program, and an VB application that process the request that the stores send
What are its minimum requirements?
I will uses SQL 2000, and maybe windows server 2000.
I'm not familiarize with hardware, I really don't how many memory or disck space we will need.
-What about backup and disaster recovery requirements?
I was reading a document that talk about a server that have another server that have the copy of all the information and in case that the first server crush the second server start, so the first server now with be the copy.
-Will any other software be running on the same box?
I will run a antivirus program, and an VB application that process the request that the stores send
April 13, 2006 at 3:06 am
For financial transactions, even at the low/medium rate of 1 per 3 seconds, I still would not settle for anything less than 2 processors, 2 GB (4 better), and at least 4 drives in 2 RAID 1 mirrors. More drives will give more flexibility and speed. RAID is a must, the cheaper HP ProLiant DL380 G4 machines do not have it, and will not be robust enough for your needs. The more expensive (of course) HP ProLiant DL380 G4 models with RAID should be fine.
April 13, 2006 at 7:41 am
Don't forget storage. You didn't completely answer the question about historical data storage requirements. Based on saving 28,000 transaction records per day, you need to multiply that by n days per week and multiply that by m weeks of total storage to estimate your storage requirements. RAID 1 is better than nothing, but you might want to look at other performance-enhancing options like RAID 0+1, and splitting your database into filegroups, etc. All of these options will affect physical and logical storage choices.
April 13, 2006 at 9:10 am
We are going to save the last 6 months like 5,040,000 transaccions.
The person that do the Pos ask me the next information:
Server Model, Number of disk and capaticy , Memory, Ram
Is there a better server model for my necessities that the HP Proliant 380 G4 that my boss suggest?
April 13, 2006 at 11:25 am
The high-performance model looks adequate. The bare bones minimum model does not. Make sure you get hardware RAID and enough physical/logical storage capacity. There are always better models for almost anything you want to do, but that "better-ness" is going to cost more $$$.
Your next step is to multiply out all those numbers you gave in previous questions about storage to estimate your total storage requirements.
April 14, 2006 at 8:05 am
One more thing I would like to add to this list is
Look at sql server 2005 server licenses and the fees
Yes, this is new product and as always we should count all pros and cons.
Big Plus
If you go for sql server 2000 standard edition, you will be hitting memory
constrain sooner or later, it can't address more than 2 Gig of RAM,
then choice is Sql Server 2000 Enterprise edition which is far more costly than
having sql server 2005 standard edition, which probably in you case is good
choice which comes with 2 extremely useful feature
unlimited memory(RAM) and Redundency ( Database Mirroring)
in addition to this are the standard advantages such as
1.New Version , completely rewritten product.
2.Very Close integration with Dot net frame work.
Cons
1. Learning curve for some time.
2. You will not get enough of expert opinion for a while, as always is the
case with new product.
Kindest Regards,
Sameer Raval [Sql Server DBA]
Geico Insurance
RavalSameer@hotmail.com
April 14, 2006 at 10:49 am
Hi Sameer.
That was a nice little but great point to note.
Thanks so much !
April 17, 2006 at 8:39 am
Thank you so much!
April 17, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Does the Database Mirroring work now? Last I heard Database Mirroring was turned off in retail versions, and MS would only allow you to turn it on (supported that is) on a case-by-case basis. So is the mirror still broke? Or did they fix it yet?
April 17, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Hi!
I have a meeting today and they change the requirements, the server will support 3 applications instead of 1 and will storage 1 year of transactions.
How many users total will have access? 50 users
-What is the peak load you anticipate? 250,000 transactions per day ( we are a 24 hrs store chain)
-What are the historical data storage and reporting requirements? One year
-Will you need to run any additional security software (encryption, etc.) on the same box? What are its minimum requirements?
We will runt the eTrust Antivirus, and 3 VB applacations.
-What about backup and disaster recovery requirements?
We need that when something happen to the databases or the server automatically a second server or databases start working, this need to be transparent to the user.
I guess we will need a second server
We will use SQL Server 2000 and Windows Advanced Server 2000.
April 17, 2006 at 5:21 pm
You'll want to definitely look into hot-swappable RAID and a fail-over cluster solution with your second server. Properly configured, this will make a failed server as transparent to your users as possible.
Also, try to limit the amount of extra software you install on your server. The fewer programs SQL Server has to compete with for resources, the better for you.
Best of luck!
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