Spec-ing SQL Server Box For Small Work Group?

[(PeteCresswell)]

I think I've finally got my guys talked into buying a dedicated
PC so we can fool around with SQL Server and see if it offers any
improvements over the various .MDB back ends we have now.

We're talking 20 concurrent users max. More like 4-6 most of
the time.

Before somebody says SQL Server is overkill in this situation, I
should add that we've got a new app that does some pretty heavy
number crunching and seems made for a background process running
on the server.

I get to spec the box and they'll spring for just about anything
within reason that I can defend.

No knowing anything much about PCs and SQL Server, my kneejerk
reaction is to get a high-end desktop PC with as much memory as
possible and put Windows Server on it even though we'll at first
be using the developer version of SQL Server.

Can anybody shed some light? Ballpark prices?

 

[David W. Fenton]

No knowing anything much about PCs and SQL Server, my kneejerk
reaction is to get a high-end desktop PC with as much memory as
possible and put Windows Server on it even though we'll at first
be using the developer version of SQL Server.

I would recommend a box with lots of RAM and lots of FAST disk
space, preferably RAIDed. How much is "lots" is open to discussion.
I would never go with a workstation-grade PC for a SQL Server
supporting 20 users, even if right now only a quarter of them are in
the database at a time. This is particularly true if, as you say,
the SQL Server will be doing some heavy-lifting calculating.

I think I'd go with a dual-core machine (Xeon or not) with
medium-to-high clock speed, 4GBs of RAM and 500GBs of high-RPM
(10000 is good) disk space, mirrored (i.e., 2 identical 500GB
drives), especially if you can get a machine with a RAID controller
that's smart enough to use one drive for reads/writes and the
mirrored for reads when the first drive is busy -- this can really
make disk access fly.

That is, if you want a machine that will just hum along under that
load without problems and need no upgrades to support 20
simultaneous users.

Can't say what the cost would be -- depends on whether your buying a
standalone box or a blade server. And most of the cost will be in
the RAM and disks and the RAID controller.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per David W. Fenton:

I would never go with a workstation-grade PC for a SQL Server
supporting 20 users, even if right now only a quarter of them are in
the database at a time. This is particularly true if, as you say,
the SQL Server will be doing some heavy-lifting calculating.

Thanks. That supports my gut feeling. Couple thou extra,
they'll never even notice. A half or 3/4 second improvement (or
degradation) in a screen's load time and they'll notice big-time.

What's "Medium-to-high" clock speed? 4 ghz? More? Maybe a
moot point if I start pricing dual-core Xeon machines - since
they're probably all just varying degrees of high-end.

I'm thinking put SQL Sever on an existing desktop PC and see how
it performs. If I get lucky and can demonstrate improved
response time from that platform, then I go for the gold: RAID,
Xeon, max memory.... wretched excess all the way... and they're
*really* happy.

OTOH, if the desktop pilot doesn't show any improvement - or even
shows a degradation, I go back to square one and re-think my
approach.

I'm hopeful though. Last SQL back end I did (in fact the *only*
one I ever did from the bottom up) was a project management
system at a major electric utility. We ran it most of the time
on a regular PC under some engineer's desk and I was quite
surprised at how well it performed. My sense was that it moved
faster than it would have with a .MDB back there.

I think there's a beeeeeeg diff between going the extra mile with
stored procedures and ADO recordsets instead of just pretending
it's a .MDB via ODBC connections.

I've been sucked into a couple of projects where the latter was
done. Somebody in IT decreed that the XYZ application's back
end just *had* tb moved to a "real" database, so they just
migrated the tables... period... and it seemed to me like
performance went down the tubes.

 

[Paul Shapiro]

You should check the specs for SQL developer version. I believe it's only
licensed for a single user, and that restriction might be enforced. You
could use the developer version for your development, and deploy with the
free Express version. Express has some performance limits built in, but not
user limits.