Memory issue between SQL Server and SSIS

  • Hi all,

    I'm the (only) DBA of a 64-bit VMWare machine with 8 processors (Windows Server 2012 Datacenter) of 120GB memory, of which 110GB is constantly occupied. On the machine I have SQL Server 2008R2 Enterprise (10.50.4042.0), SSIS and SQL Server Agent running. The Agent is heavily used together with packages from SSIS. During my holiday, a contractor filled in my role, and then advised to put SQL Server and SSIS on different machines, but our management decided differently. In the meantime we're also upgrading to SQL Server 2016.

    When I now look at the Task Manager, I see that SQL Server uses up between 300 and 400MB of memory. When I add up the rest of all the software and services running, I get to maybe 1 or 2GB. My Nagios monitor constantly warns me that the Page Life Expentancy is low and it has decreased rapidly over the last year. It often drops below to 80 seconds. There aren't real performance issues, although we of course would like to have our database running faster.

    My question now is: is the page life expentancy really a worry for me?

    Thanks in advance!

    Ronald HensbergenHelp us, help yourself... Post data so we can read and use it: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/-------------------------------------------------------------------------2+2=5 for significant large values of 2

  • Ronald H - Tuesday, November 21, 2017 1:45 AM

    Hi all,

    I'm the (only) DBA of a 64-bit VMWare machine with 8 processors (Windows Server 2012 Datacenter) of 120GB memory, of which 110GB is constantly occupied. On the machine I have SQL Server 2008R2 Enterprise (10.50.4042.0), SSIS and SQL Server Agent running. The Agent is heavily used together with packages from SSIS. During my holiday, a contractor filled in my role, and then advised to put SQL Server and SSIS on different machines, but our management decided differently. In the meantime we're also upgrading to SQL Server 2016.

    When I now look at the Task Manager, I see that SQL Server uses up between 300 and 400MB of memory. When I add up the rest of all the software and services running, I get to maybe 1 or 2GB. My Nagios monitor constantly warns me that the Page Life Expentancy is low and it has decreased rapidly over the last year. It often drops below to 80 seconds. There aren't real performance issues, although we of course would like to have our database running faster.

    My question now is: is the page life expentancy really a worry for me?

    Thanks in advance!

    I think I'm missing something - you have 110 GB of memory in use most of the time and SQL Server is 300-400 MB and the other software and services adds up to 1 - 2 GB. But then again, Task Manager isn't always very accurate.
    I wouldn't necessarily based anything on one metric. What other things have you used to check the memory and usage of the cache? Did you check buffer pool usage? Have you monitored SQL Server Target Server Memory and SQL Server Total Server Memory using Performance Monitor? Any queries of the ring buffer resource monitor or checking the notifications, usage in dm_os_process_memory?
    Also, what is the max memory setting for the instance? What is actually occupying the 110 GB of memory always in use?

    Sue

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