Hi Andy sql,
Andy sql (4/15/2014)
...In the absence of a SAN guru, an alternative approach, also suggested by SQLBuddy, would be to run a stress test tool to get an idea of the real-world situation. Depending on whether you like your SAN Admin, you may want to check with them first!
...
I like my job, and my reputation as a good DBA, too much to risk bringing the company's SAN environment to its knees and costing it a lot of money :crazy: ...it's a financial-based company and an outage would be in the 100's of thousands, and possibly millions, of £££££'s. So, sorry, but there is no way I would do such a thing. And for anyone else reading this - by all means try it at home, but please don't do this on a production system without preparing your CV!!! 😉
As for SQLIO/SQLIOSim/IOmeter/etc., I'm fully aware of these tools and what to use them for...and in fact SQLIO was the tool used to try and 'stress' the SAN environment by another DBA - which of course the SAN Admins (there's 3 of them and they're big and scary) would not allow. Because I don't have the perfect opportunity of a SAN available to carry out my own tests I was hopeful that a SAN guru would be able to help, and possibly point me to good quality information to help answer my questions, especially Q.3.
Thanks anyway.