SQL Server 2000 Consolidation: a business case

performance data has been built up over a period of time for low, average, and peak usage periods,
a subjective determination of an acceptable performance can be made for each system. These
established baselines can be used to investigate long-term changes in usage patterns for database
capacity planning.
Establishing baselines
To gain enough information to establish system baselines, various counters need to be monitored.
A trend line can be established by monitoring them over a period of weeks and months.
Use the following counters to establish the CPU baseline:
Process: Working Set (sqlservr)
Processor\% Processor Time
System\Processor Queue Length
Use the following counters to establish the memory baseline:
Memory\Pages/sec
Memory\Available Bytes
Paging File(_Total)\% Usage
SQL Server: Buffer Manager: Buffer Cache Hit Ratio
SQL Server: Buffer Manager: Total Pages
SQL Server: Memory Manager: Total Server Memory (KB)
Use the following counters to establish the disk baseline:
LogicalDisk\% Free Space
PhysicalDisk\% Disk Time
PhysicalDisk\Current Disk Queue Length
PhysicalDisk\Disk Reads/sec
PhysicalDisk\Disk Writes/sec
PhysicalDisk\Avg.Disk Queue Length
Memory\Available Bytes
Memory\Cache Bytes
Memory\Pages/sec
Processor(All_Instances)\% Processor Time
SQL Server: Buffer Manager\Page Reads/sec
SQL Server: Buffer Manager\Page Writes/sec
System\Processor Queue Length
SQL Server consolidation—repeatability and scalability
Though server consolidation is an intricate process, the benefits can include a more reliable and
scalable solution at a lower operating cost. The Scalability Experts server consolidation process
provides a tried and proven approach. The phases of this process include:
Phase 1: scoping and server utilization study
Phase 2: designing the consolidated servers
Phase 3: migration
Phase 4: test and measurement
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