John Galt's questions

We are upgrading our ERP application to run on SQL Server 2008 R2. It currently runs as a file-based system in it's own Server 2008 virtual machine. SQL Server will be installed into that VM.

We have a separate virtual machine (on the same physical host) that runs SQL Server for other data. Is there a reason (performance or otherwise) to go through the trouble of replicating data from the ERP SQL server to another VM? My original plan was to replicate for reporting purposes and reduce the load on the ERP SQL server, but if both SQL servers are on the same physical host, I can't see a performance benefit to doing so.

We have a Dell R710 that had serious hardware issues last Friday evening. Dell replaced the mobo and processor, and the machine booted fine. The server runs Win2k8 R2 Server Core, and hosts 4 VMs, all Win2k8 R2. One of the VMs runs SQL Server 2008 R2. Storage is RAID10 SAS 15k.

I have a few benchmark queries for SQL server that take about 30 seconds to run. After the repairs from Friday, they now take about 60 seconds to run. I can't figure out what's causing the drop in performance. The configuration for everything has not changed, only the mobo and processor. Any ideas on what I should be looking at?

I'm trying to determine the best route for a server upgrade for the company I work for. We're growing and I'd like to get something that can grow with us. I have a flexible budget.

We currently run two servers, a Dell PE 2600 (7 yrs old, no warranty, Xeon 2400 2.5GB RAM) with Win2k3 that hosts AD/DNS/DHCP/Print Sharing, our BackupExec install, and Exchange 2k3. Total space used is about 50GB, including 26GB used by Exchange.

A second server, an HP ML350 (2 years old, still in warranty, Xeon E5430 4GB RAM) hosts an ERP app, another accounting app, file sharing for everyone (we don't use folder redirection or roaming profiles -- just straight shared drives), and our Trend Micro AV install. Total space used is about 100GB.

We have 17 users in the office and 5 sales reps which access their email via OWA. Backups are done nightly to an HP Ultrium LTO3 tape drive, and to a QNAP NAS with 2x1.5GB RAID1 arrays.

My plan is to upgrade to a single Dell R710 (Intel X5675, 24GB RAM, PERC H700 RAID with 2x1TB SAS Near Line drives RAID1 for File sharing, and 4x300GB 15K SAS drives RAID10 for VMs) and virtualize our existing two servers with ESXi. I would run 4 Win2k8 R2 VMs, one for AD/DNS/DHCP/etc, one for our ERP/accounting app, one for Exchange 2k10, and one for SQL server.

The old Dell would be decommissioned and the HP would be upgraded to Win2k8 R2 to act as a secondary DC and run various other software that we currently don't have the hardware for.

Arguably, I'm putting our entire IT infrastructure on one server and if it goes down, all of our VMs go down, but I don't have quite the budget to get a proper HA setup. I'm a fan of "put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket", so I planned on getting 3yr Dell ProSupport with 4HR same day service. This would be an acceptable level of downtime to us.

Is my plan solid? Am I overlooking a critical area? I'm fairly knowledgable, but this is my first time configuring a setup at this level, so I'd like to get it right. I'll be working with a consultant to help with the AD/Exchange migration, so we covered in that respect. Thanks in advance for your feedback.