Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Choosing and Configuring
Hardware
The previous chapters have focused on how to monitor and troubleshoot a SQL Server system.
From this chapter forward you'll look at what you can do to resolve the bottlenecks and tune
any performance problems. Your SQL Server system may consist of multiple servers hosting
multiple applications or just a single server running everything. Either way, there are lots of moving
parts, each of which must work together efficiently to provide the highest level of performance. If
you think of each resource as a link in a chain, the weakest link really can weaken or even break
the chain.
This chapter covers selecting and configuring the environment that SQL Server runs in; namely
Windows and the server hardware itself. You will also learn how you should proactively design
your environment using best practices to avoid performance problems later on.
First you'll look at which resources can become a bottleneck and what can be the cause. It is impor-
tant to know where your system's weaknesses are likely to occur so you can proactively monitor
the resources using what you've learned in Chapters 2 and 3. Read the first section of this chapter
to understand the scope of what you're going to tune.
You will then look at what you need to consider to make the correct server configuration choices
and how your choice can impact SQL Server performance. Taking into account the requirements of
all the applications running on the infrastructure is absolutely necessary to avoid service outages
later on. You can read this section to guide your decisions when designing a new system or to help
you proactively review an existing environment to ensure you're getting the most from your setup.
Server Bottlenecks
There are three server resources that you should be concerned about when trying to identify
and resolve bottlenecks. You should review them in the following order: Memory, I/O, CPU.
This section looks at each of these in turn and you'll also learn why you should look at them in
this order.
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