Best way to deploy SBS2008 & SQL Server Components on a single server

[caved]

Hi,

Thanks for bearing with me through this post, i'm no expert...

I am attempting to setup a server for a client - they have purchased a single Dell PowerEdge T710. I want to have SBS running on this, with exchange, WSUS, SQL Server, network anti-virus etc.

I am aware of the two scenarios that microsoft details;

Fig1; Two Physical Servers. Not appliciable as we only have 1.
Fig2; Single Physical Server. Two Virtualised Servers.

This second scenario looks like it would do the job, however I have been told and have read that this solution will make managing the SQL Server rather awkward - essentially forcing us to use PowerShells to control them. We very much want to avoid this situation if at all possible.

I've also read about a 3rd scenario which involves installing SQL Server on to the domain controller - which Microsoft do not recommend. I'm guessing this is due to resource restrictions. I know that both SQL Server and SBS like to allocate as much memory as they can and will hold on to it til death do us part.

Would it be possible to setup the server as follows;

Install SBS2008 Standard as my primary OS on the phsyical server.
Install Hyper-V
Create a virtualized server, running Windows Server 2008
Install SQL Server Components on to the virtual server.

Is this possible? Is it recommended? Will it fall over for whatever reason? I'm really after as much advice as possible - any do's or definately DO NOT'S would be great. I've been googling this for a few days now and I just don't know what the best solution is!

Thanks,
Dave C

 

[ShackDaddy]

I would avoid using SBS 2008 as a virtualization host. That's definitely not supported. In my mind, it would be better to run SQL 2008 right on the SBS 2008 box--you can always throttle memory usage. Additionally, you have control over how much memory gets installed into this server: if you are going to run SQL locally, my guess would be that you'd want to deploy the hardware with 24gb of RAM and also put some memory usage throttling in place.

Here's an article on how to do throttling:

http://merill.net/2010/05/limit-sql-server-memory-usage-on-your-workstation-laptop-or-vm/

And one more on general considerations:

http://www.eraofdata.com/blog/2008/10/sql-server-memory-configuration/

Dave Shackelford MVP
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com