SQL Server Consolidation

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SQL Server Consolidation

Thayal Muhunthan

Old Hand

Points: 388
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August 8, 2008 at 3:33 am

#122846

We are planning to consolidate some of our SQL servers on a single big beefy server.
We are in the process of implementing a SAN network (Clarion), but need a really good server with lots of processing power to hold the SQL server.
I also like to utlise the SAN network, but no clue what and how I can use them to create a sophisticated, secure SQL server environment.
Any help from you is really appreciated.
Thayal

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Perry Whittle SSC Guru Points: 234012 More actions · Answer 1

are you planning physical or virtual machines

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"Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉

Thayal Muhunthan Old Hand Points: 388 More actions · Answer 2

We purchased an ESX server, but the project is on hold becuase of lack of time and skills.

The easiest to purchase physical hardware and utlise the new SAN environment.

I downloaded the evaluation copy of QUest Capacity manger, but worried to fully use it as it might deploy agents on our SQL servers for monitoring etc.

I prefer using simple spreadsheet to get some sort of performance idea on our SQL servers so that I can plan what goes where and so on.

But, please give me some idea how I can use the SAN and beefy SQL server ?

Cheers

Thayal

Perry Whittle SSC Guru Points: 234012 More actions · Answer 3

presumably you have the ESX server installed\configured\secured and hooked up to the SAN?

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"Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉

CrazyMan SSChampion Points: 12560 More actions · Answer 4

Hi Tayal

What's the SAN you have got with you, for start you can start with hooking up SAN with ESX host( as white suggested), this will server as local drives of ESX hosts, this is what i did for the start and then moved my production servers to SAN.

Note:

On virtual machines you cant allocate more than 4 CPU per virtual machine.

hope this helps,

if you can post ur server configuration and what serves you need to combine, then we can look into it in more detail

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 735611 More actions · Answer 5

Before consolidating, you need to determine how many resources each of your current SQL Server instances are using. Knowing CPU usage and memory will be important for determining how to allocate resources to each VM.

For SQL Server consolidation, you can use instances, or you can have multiple databases per instance. There isn't necessarily a reason to go to VMs. With VMs, you have to be careful about how you setup the IO paths as well, since there are potentially problems with running SQL Server in a VM environment.