I have been tasked for “specking” out the requirements for a new OTLP SQL Server and I would like some feed back on this as well.
Here are my initial requirements, we have to use SQL 2008 R2 because the application that will be using these databases have not been certified for SQL 2012 yet (boo)
Some background, the current server has over 1 TB of databases and is highly active with over 100 concurrent connections. These connection process UPDATE, INSERT, DELETE statements like they were going out of style. And one of these databases is a repository for data used by SSRS Reports. Not an ideal situation, but I have to follow application manufacture guidelines.
here’s what I have:
- OS: Windows Sever 2008 R2 x64
- SQL: SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition x64
- Processors: 2 Quad core processors
- Memory: as much as can be budgeted, but minimum of 64 GB
- Local Drives:
- 1 – System Drive for OS & Applications the minimum free space needs to equal the amount of RAM installed
- 1 — for TempDB, Full-Text Indexes, other resources and System databases
- Database drives: SAN Connections 2 drives: one drive for MDF and one drive for LDF
Please let me know if I missed something or if I am TOTALLY off my rocker with this setup.
Thanks!
Padre's SQL Resort 
If you are going to be using SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition, there is no need to restrict the number of processor cores to only four. If you are looking at two-socket servers (which is a good idea), you should look at the Intel Xeon E5-2690 (which has eight-cores) and the best single-threaded performance available.
RAM is extremely affordable, so I would be looking at getting more than 64GB of RAM since you have Enterprise Edition.
You should add more details about your SAN,
Thank You Glenn,
I did not include more information on the SAN because I am somewhat restricted on the SAN hardware, i.e. we have to use what we have. I believe it is probably a RAID 5 setup, but not sure. I am not a hardware person by any means, especially SANs. I will follow up on more details about the SAN.
Thanks for the info on the CPUs, you suggest this because SQL 2008 licensing is based on “per processor” not “per core” like SQL 2012, right? Get the most power per processor as I can.
The SAN Configuration for this particular SAN which is dedicated to the server. one problem is MDF and LDF files are scattered throughout these two drives.
I am told it is a EMC CX-380 (that will be replaced in the next 12-24 months). One Mirrored RAID group of 12 disks. Single Spindle has 2 LUNs on it D:\ and E:\
Does that help?