Summarizing requirements:
All of previous posts, could be summarized as done in this post. Read all of previous posts here
- Embarking on New Project–SQL Server Replication
- SQL Server Replication Project – 1
- SQL Server Replication Project – 2 (Network)
- SQL Server Replication Project - 3 (Remaining)
Post lot of discussions, in SQL Server data replication project there seems to be 2 main criteria (or questions that need answers)
- Network
- Server Sizing of Central Server
Network:
- What is current network bandwidth at different points in network topology?
- What is network bandwidth requirement for Transactional Replication and Log Shipping?
- Will Network scale up to bandwidth requirements for Transactional replication and / Log Shipping?
- If needed, how much additional bandwidth is needed?
In summary we would need sustainable, available appropriate bandwidth for data replication to withstand different load patterns across seasons and different data types.
Server Sizing:
In addition to network second most important aspect is hardware specifications of Central Server. As already indicated in earlier posts it is a Central Subscriber topology where data from remote sites needs to be replicated to central location. And we have around 350 remote locations.
- Can a single central server handle data from 350 remote locations?
- If so, of what hardware specification should server be built with?
- Is 16 Processor sufficient or do we need 64 Processor machine?
- What is requirement of Physical Memory, 16 GB or 64 GB?
- What is disk size / space requirement would it suffice to have 4 TB or do we need to have 12 TB?
- What are future growth implications across all sites?
- What are availability needs of central server?
Sizing of remote servers is also important but not as important as Central Server. For remote servers we need to answer
- What is additional load on remote server due to data replication and
- Would remote server be able to handle additional load and if not?
- what additional resources are needed?
As is clear from above summary, we have created 2 streams Network Stream and H/W Sizing stream. Both of these streams are executed in parallel and would aim to answer questions and more such questions.
Next is Server Sizing methodology and what are different options to size a server.
-Guru
