Hardware Setup

I am new to SQL and over the next year we will be implementing a SQL server for an imaging application and a CRM package and I already have a few other small packages using MSDE that could take advantage of a SQL server. Is it best to have one large SQL
server for your network or have many different boxes. I realize that by only having one box you put all of you eggs in one basket although if you have several you need several different copies of the software and lots of hardware which drives the cost up
. We are a growing 100 person company and we need to prepare for the future. Is it not advisable to say build a quad processor box with lots of RAM and Disk and purchase the Processor version of either Standard or Enterprise and let several apps take ad
vantage of the SQL server? Is it dependent on the apps whether or not you could do this? Any pointers or information would be greatly appreciated....
Thanks
Mike,
There are pro's and con's to everything and this is no exception but in
general I feel that you will be better off going with one server vs.
several. This will simplify maintenance, lower costs and will be easier to
expand later on. This is especially true if none of the apps that will run
on the box require a huge amount of resources all the time. This way the
different apps can share the larger resource pool (memory, cpu's etc) more
efficiently and take advantage of their individual peaks without sacrificing
performance.
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
"Mike" <anonymous@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:371D39BD-DCF1-47B0-9E08-292128DA8EFE@.microsoft.com...
> I am new to SQL and over the next year we will be implementing a SQL
server for an imaging application and a CRM package and I already have a few
other small packages using MSDE that could take advantage of a SQL server.
Is it best to have one large SQL server for your network or have many
different boxes. I realize that by only having one box you put all of you
eggs in one basket although if you have several you need several different
copies of the software and lots of hardware which drives the cost up. We
are a growing 100 person company and we need to prepare for the future. Is
it not advisable to say build a quad processor box with lots of RAM and Disk
and purchase the Processor version of either Standard or Enterprise and let
several apps take advantage of the SQL server? Is it dependent on the apps
whether or not you could do this? Any pointers or information would be
greatly appreciated....
> Thanks