Sql Server Consolidation

  • Hi,

    I would like to know in detail how to acheive sql server consolidation, i have no idea about this, why do we do this and how to acheive this, but i have told to work on this, please let me know.

    With Regards

    Dakshina Murthy

  • First thing for you to do is to understand what is management asking you to do.

    My wild guess is that you have several SQL Server boxes in your shop and somebody has the brilliant idea of "consolidating" all or some of them in a smaller number of servers. Do you get the idea?

    _____________________________________
    Pablo (Paul) Berzukov

    Author of Understanding Database Administration available at Amazon and other bookstores.

    Disclaimer: Advice is provided to the best of my knowledge but no implicit or explicit warranties are provided. Since the advisor explicitly encourages testing any and all suggestions on a test non-production environment advisor should not held liable or responsible for any actions taken based on the given advice.
  • SQL Server consolidation simply means taking databases, services, jobs etc. housed on a proliferation of SQL Servers and migrating them to one or more large centralised SQL Servers.

    The objective of doing this it to reduce server headcount, thus saving money on hardware, software, licensing, administration, and support overhead.

  • Here are some tips to start with. This is going to take time.

    Find out where all the servers are?

    What is on those servers?

    Who has access to them?

    Do they still use the data that is on the servers?

    How much data is on each server?

    Are the servers you currently using able to expand their usage?

    Plan to create different SQL Instance for the different data sets. This will help if you have to stop the services of a data set and not effect others.

    Look at the usage of each of the old servers and determine which are just file servers, print server, SQL server, Application Servers, Backup Servers,

    Break them down into groups of common usage and then plan on what can be combined.

    As for archiving data, determine what is the time frame that they are willing to wait to bring the data back on line to determine if it can be archived.

  • Here is a link for some other helpful information. It was setup for SQL2K but process still applies

    http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2000/plan/sql2kcon.mspx

  • That's a really good link.

    I can see the cut-and-pasteability of that being very useful if faced with the task of writing a business proposal for SQL Server consolidation.

  • I used the process to work out an outline for other servers as well.

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