SQL Server and FM Server on same Machine?

[spongebob]

Hi,

a client of mine has an extremely powerful Windows 2008 Server which runs an SQL Server.

He now wants to install FM Server 11 onto the same machine, because he doesnt have another machine.

Has someone ever done this and can it be done?

We wish to interrogate the SQL Server from the FM Server in this case.

Is that possible if they are both on the same machine?

Thanks

[Wim Decorte]

It can be done in the sense that nothing will prevent the installation.

BUT

all databases have the same 3 bottlenecks:

- processor

- disk I/O

- network traffic

As a rule of thumb: combing any two roles that are constrained by those bottlenecks will make both suffer. That has nothing to do with FileMaker, the same would be true about combining MS SQL server on the same machine as DB2, or Oracle or MySQL...

Add to that the complexity of having to deal with updates for either one that will cause downtime for both...

So forget about the technical reasons, think about risks.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Hi,

a client of mine has an extremely powerful Windows 2008 Server which runs an SQL Server.

He now wants to install FM Server 11 onto the same machine, because he doesnt have another machine.

Has someone ever done this and can it be done?

We wish to interrogate the SQL Server from the FM Server in this case.

Is that possible if they are both on the same machine?

Thanks

What Wim said, times 2.

Steven

[spongebob]

Hi thanks for those replies, it was what I expected.

That said; one more question.

What if the client uses Hyper V virtualisation (Windows 2008 Server) and we create a seperate virtual space for the FM Server?

Would that probably be better? Does anyone have such a setup with Hyper-V and have some experience with that?

Thanks for your patience with this,

Spongebob

[Steven H. Blackwell]

one more question.

What if the client uses Hyper V virtualisation (Windows 2008 Server) and we create a seperate virtual space for the FM Server?

In the end there are only so many resources the physical machine has. The problem with a lot of VM's that have been set up to run FIleMaker Server is that the VM itself is starved for resources because the main machine doesn't have enough to go around.

Steven

[Wim Decorte]

What Steven says. In theory it would work, but only if the host machine has sufficient resources to run both OSes efficiently AND have the extra needed for the virtualization overhead. So if the server was dimensioned for just its SQL server role, virtualization will actually make things worse.

[spongebob]

Okay thank you very much!

These are exactly the answers I expected. (as usual, no surprises there re the hardware issue...)

My client has now agreed to get a seperate machine; Im sure that was a wise decision.

Now one more performance question.

We have 2 Raid 1 Volumes in this machine. Disk C: and D:.

Is there something to be gained in putting the Filemaker Application on one disk © and the live databases in the other disk (D)?

By default FM installs everything on C:. Should I split the application from the databases? Is that wise?

Thanks.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

We have 2 Raid 1 Volumes in this machine. Disk C: and D:.

Is there something to be gained in putting the Filemaker Application on one disk © and the live databases in the other disk (D)?

By default FM installs everything on C:. Should I split the application from the databases? Is that wise?

Yes, there is. But not in this configuration. If you're using RAID use RAID 10 preferably. Raid 5 will also work, bit not so well.

Steven