New Server

[HestonJames]

Hello Guys,

I'm hoping this wont be too much of an open ended question but I'm looking for your thoughts and experience on the growth of my server set-up and the best approach for me to take.

At the moment we have a fairly low specification dedicated server with our hosting provider which is running SQL 2k5 Workgroup Edition, this server is also used as our webserver running IIS and web application servers running PHP and ColdFusion and all the usual FTP etc etc.

Now that our database is beginning to grow and we have substantial growth planned within the business I feel its time to plan how we can scale our current server platform to facilitate the increase in traffic and data passed to us by our clients giving us better performance and future proofing the service we provide.

My initial thought is that for both performance and security reasons SQL needs to be ripped off onto its own box, is that a fair suggestion to make? If so, then what should be my concerns from a hardware point of view for the new box? See, from a data integrity point of view I'm thinking some sort of disk array like RAID 5 may be a great benefit, however, does having such an array compromise on the performance of the database? then what about the server OS? I see my provider offers 2k3 and also 2008 Datacenter edition, is there any direct benefit to me running SQL server on the later OS?

The next thing I really want to take into consideration is configuration of the server, it is only my other web server which needs access, no other servers will connect directly to the box, how should the server be configured to receive a connection? through TCP/IP and close all other ports on the box? What about user names and passwords for the server, if my web server is connecting remotely over TCP/IP is there a risk that user names and passwords can be intercepted? or are they encrypted?

This is really all just ground work at the moment, I expect the upgrade to be run in around 3-6 months time but I want to understand what I'm diving into before we do it.

On the upside to all this the new server will be coinciding with a new application build and database schema so we'll not have any data which needs migrating :-D

Thanks all for any input you have, whether its just notes on your experiences, links to articles worth reading or whatever, I'm completely open to anything.

If you have any questions let me know.

Cheers,

Heston

 

[JayKusch]

First off, having SQL on its own server is surely the way to go.

Secondly is budget ... what amount of finance is permissable for the server. That makes all the difference in what hardware can be acquired and how the server can be configured.

From there we can talk about the finer point of what other "services" if any can or should run on the SQL box.

Thanks

J. Kusch

 

[HestonJames]

Jay,

Well budget is a fair enough question, I've not really sat down and nailed it into place as generally I tend to figure out what spec we need to facilitate the use case and then find a way to afford it ;-) However, if we set a ballpark figure or around £400 a month or $600 dollars at today's exchange.

I'm glad that the idea of pulling SQL onto its own box makes good sense, it will also save me having to reconfigure my web server :-D

Thanks,

Heston

 

[JayKusch]

Just so I am on the same page here, you are saying $600 for a dedicated server for SQL?

Thanks

J. Kusch

 

[HestonJames]

That's correct. Is that a fair enough figure?

 

[JayKusch]

Well, at that $600 price we are surely looking at you staying on you current Workgroup SQL version since just upgrading to Standard edition of SQL will run you around $6000.

$600 just does not allow for much. I am not sure you are even going to be able to leverage any type of RAID since in most likelyhood you will need more than a couple of disc.

And a bare-bones server for $600 just does not get you far in the area of process and the all important SQL hardware ... "RAM".

The cost of just getting Windows Server OS purchased for the server is going to exceed you $600.



Thanks

J. Kusch

 

[gmmastros]

Jay,

I think Heston is looking for a web hosted type of server that costs approximately $600 per month.

Heston, please correct me if I'm wrong.

-George

"The great things about standards is that there are so many to choose from." - Fortune Cookie Wisdom

 

[JayKusch]

Ahhh ... thanks for the clarification.

Thanks

J. Kusch

 

[HestonJames]

Yeah, sorry Jay, George is correct, we're looking at a budget of $600 a month hehe ;-)

If I'd only had a total budget of $600 I'd probably have been better of storing my data using a piece of paper and pencil ;-)

Also keep in mind that I'm already paying about 75$ a month for a work group licence fee which will be shifted to the new server so we're really looking at a total budget of around $675 a month.

Heston