Conditions and Constraints

You have a maximum budget of $500,000 for all database- related hardware. The hardware should take into account at least two to three years worth of system growth. The growth for the database in that time frame is predicted to be approximately 700 GB, with an 80/20 ratio of data to log. No capacity planning numbers for processor or memory usage exist to help you plan your hardware purchase because the information has not been tracked. You need to make an educated guess. The company, starting with this database solution, will institute policies for monitoring to facilitate capacity planning.

Software licensing and software support come out of a different budget, and are not factors in this exercise. Components such as cabling and racks are also outside the scope of this exercise, but in the real world you need to consider these factors as well.

Note

Keep in mind that this scenario is heavily focused on the SQL Server side of things and not on the application or the rest of the infrastructure, including the aforementioned cabling, racks, and other forms of hardware and software that will comprise the entire solution. For a full real-world solution, those would all be part of the planning process.

The company has decided that hardware can be purchased only from the options listed in the Excel spreadsheet HW_Cost.xls on the Hardware Base Costs tab.