Some queries about SQL server deployment

Haggisman

Haggisman

Haggisman

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We're looking at reducing our software licencing costs, and a major part of this is SQL server.

We currently have ~10 individual SQL servers set up across the network, each for their own individual application, e.g. SCE, antivirus, TFS, BES, SharePoint and a couple of our own applications, which each have their own SQL server installed on the same hardware.

Ideally I'd like to consolidate all of these onto a dedicated high spec. SQL server, meaning we'd only need 1 licence, however unfortunately I'm by no means an expert on SQL server, so have no idea if this is even possible?

So first question - is this doable/a good idea?

And if so what's the best way to go about doing it?

Thanks very much!
 
its doable. you need to examine the load on each of those individual SQL installs to get an idea of what you need when consolidated. SQL likes IOPS and RAM.

Biggest peice of work will be working out how to move all those database and reconfigure the apps so they look to the new sql box.

stating the obvious, your creating yourself a single point of failure unless you build a cluster.
 
mikeh501 said:
its doable. you need to examine the load on each of those individual SQL installs to get an idea of what you need when consolidated. SQL likes IOPS and RAM.

Biggest peice of work will be working out how to move all those database and reconfigure the apps so they look to the new sql box.stating the obvious, your creating yourself a single point of failure unless you build a cluster.
Click to expand...

when we moved our SQL from 2000 to 2008 - simpliest way was to modify the DNS record for the old SQL servername to point to the new server IP address.
 
Main headaches will be SQL collation and resources, generally connection strings are easy to change. If you have different collations you may need more than one instance or SQL server on the "physical" box.
 
morfmedia said:
Main headaches will be SQL collation and resources, generally connection strings are easy to change. If you have different collations you may need more than one instance or SQL server on the "physical" box.
Click to expand...

I don't think any of the instances are particularly complex, and after a bit more investigation today, it looks like several of the applications would run perfectly fine on the Express version - just running a couple of test migrations on a virtual box now :)
 
As already said you need to take a look at each sql server and find out which ones are not really doing much, read / writes to disk and ram usage are the things to look for.

If you can find 3+ that are not busy you could stick them all on one server as different sql instances and cluster it. I believe when you cluster you don't need additional sql licensing as the standby cluster isn't doing anything. You will need windows 2008 enterprise licensing for your clusters.
 
Check the documentation of the software sometimes they require their own instance. Some software won't be supported unless it has its own db instance.

But you can actually install multiple instances on to the same server using one license.

At one site we have one sql physical server that has the db for the DMS, billing software, bes, dictation software, contacts software and a few others all on one instance and the sql server barely flickers in terms of resources. We only have 100 user network though but still i would have expected more load on the sql server, especially fro the dms.

the sql box is hp dl380 g5 with 12gb ram. nothing overly special either.
 
Surely if you have already bought the licences then any kind of consolidation exercise on licence costs alone would result in nil return? In fact unless you can consolidate onto a licenced box you already own, you are now forced down the SQL2012 licencing route which is (for us at least) is massively more epxensive than the old licence model.
 
groen said:
Check the documentation of the software sometimes they require their own instance. Some software won't be supported unless it has its own db instance.

But you can actually install multiple instances on to the same server using one license.

At one site we have one sql physical server that has the db for the DMS, billing software, bes, dictation software, contacts software and a few others all on one instance and the sql server barely flickers in terms of resources. We only have 100 user network though but still i would have expected more load on the sql server, especially fro the dms.

the sql box is hp dl380 g5 with 12gb ram. nothing overly special either.
Click to expand...

I might look at going down this route instead then - we have a couple of boxes which have been decommissioned recently which should be up to the job :)

kefkef said:
Surely if you have already bought the licences then any kind of consolidation exercise on licence costs alone would result in nil return? In fact unless you can consolidate onto a licenced box you already own, you are now forced down the SQL2012 licencing route which is (for us at least) is massively more epxensive than the old licence model.
Click to expand...

The problem is more that we don't currently have the licenses and I've been tasked with reducing the number we require :(
 
Also check that your 3rd party apps will work with a remote instance of SQL Server. Some vendors are very fussy that the application and SQL instance must be hosted on the same machine.
 
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