Capacity Manager Reports & Thresholds?

[jgoodman00]

We have just started using an x-series server. It has 256MB of RAM. I have been experimenting with the Director software, & in particular the capacity manager reports you can produce.

In every report I produce, it flags memory usage as a critical problem. We have 256MB of RAM installed. The server is running Windows 2000 Server, with SQL Server 2000. The SQL server is running, but not currently being used by anybody. The only function of the server at present is to support a small Microsoft Access database (for a couple of users) & print sharing.

On the reports, memory usage displays at an average level of 330MB. Windows has not reported any memory shortage problems. However, the reports seem to have a warning threshold of approx 130, & a critical threshold of approx 200.

Where do these thresholds come from?
What sets these thresholds?
Do these sound correct?
Can they be adjusted?
How much RAM is recommended to run Win2k & SQL server for 10 people?


Thanks James Goodman

 

[mkirkland]

G'Day,

I am by no means a dba but,..... it seems to me that when you install SQL it tries to grab as much memory as it can , and keeps that memory reserved for itself.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong as it's been a very long time since I've used SQL.

 

[neilcresswell]

To verify that director is acurate with its memory utilisation, bring up task manager (ctrl Shift Esc) and select performance. On the memory usage graph, the figure should be about 80% of your phyiscal memory installed in the machine else director alerts will be generated. Windows on the other hand thinks that you have physical + page file so as far at it is concerned you have heaps of ram....you do, but it us really slow.
To run w2k and sql i would never use less than 512mb of ram...

Director has some inbuilt thresholds and the rest are configured as resource monitors.

N

 

[catorze]

The Director thresholds are based on percentages of physical RAM installed, and measures the memory consumption. The thresholds are not configurable, nor is it recommended to change them. If the server is using an average of 330 MB, it seems the Capacity Mgr report is correct. Historically, Capacity Manager is very accurate, and based on the OS & SQL, I would say 256MB is not enough.