Windows Server Hardware Recommendations

We curently have some IBM Netfinity servers that we want to replace. We need
one for Deployment and one for Enterprise. Just wondering what's popular now
(brand AND model) for Windows Based servers.

Assume the following setup:
Latest JDE and Service Pack
Windows 2000 (maybe 2003) Advanced
SQL 2000 Enterprise Ed.
100 fat client users

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OneWorld B7332 SP17.1_H1
NT4/SQL7

kjjdelist,

I'm not sure that brand and model are going to be that important for you. If you are curious about sizing include some of the following:

1) How many concurrent users (100 I asume?)?
2) How many daily UBE's?
3) OLTP only or are you using the server for OLAP as well?
4) Size of business data?
5) Current specs on netfinity servers and what your current load looks like.

Also, just as a curiousity... Do you currently have your DS and ES on the netfinity servers or on an AS400?

kjjdelist,

For what it's worth, we're planning on moving to EnterpriseOne 8.9 this year, and are looking at the following hardware. Note, we have about 80-90 concurrent users typically, and we have a low volume of PO's, SO's and WO's. We're an industrial design and manufacturing facility, so we don't have a high volume of transactions.

Enterprise Server: Xeon 4-way 2.8GHz processor, 6GB memory, 200GB internal disk storage, 292 GB external RAID 0+1, dual on-board 10/100/1000 NIC cards, SuperDLT320 tape changer, Windows 2003.

For a Deployment Server, we're planning on a 2-way Intel (probably Xeon) processor, 2GB memory, about 150GB internal disk storage on Windows 2003.

Hi Don

You're looking at a slight overkill on the deployment server - and in my estimation on the ES as well for that many users - but since the hardware is so cheap these days I would certainly go ahead with the overkill.

As you know, space is more important that pure grunt power when it comes to administration - having multiple copies of data and pathcodes floating around helps the CNC administration and backup etc. Go for as much space as you can cram into the box without sacrificing performance (or cost).

When you go for 8.9 are you also expecting to migrate to a web server ? I certainly hope you're looking at seperate web boxes rather than everything on the single enterprise machine. Depending on the transaction volume and number of concurrent users, I'd expect 100 users to require quite a beefy amount of CPU.

Jon,

Yes, we are going on the high side for our new servers, but we purposely do that so that we can grow into them over the next 5 years. It's a strategy that served us very well with our last set of servers, and we expect it will do so in these next ones.

Regarding web server, we plan on staying with fat clients. We continually update our clients for speed and capacity, and with our batch package installations, management of this setup has worked out fairly well. From what I've seen and read on the web interface, it is improving, but it still is a step down from the fat client, especially in regards to grid record retrieval (e.g. the limited number of rows retrieved at a time, and how you have to fetch more rows).

Don,

Are you staying with Oracle on your new Windows 2003 server?? We are also
in the planning stages of a new enterprise and deployment server and due to
cost considerations we are also considering moving from HP-UX to Windows
2003 with Oracle.

Dave Rammer
Sheboygan County IS Dept

XE u/2 w/SP21 and J1 oneoff / Ent: HP9000 11i / Oracle 8.1.7.3 / App: W2K
Metaframe: W2K w/Citrix XP FR2

Re: RE: Windows Server Hardware Recommendations

Dave,

Yes, we are staying with Oracle.

Re: RE: Windows Server Hardware Recommendations

Before making the larger leap, I would certainly consider partitioning some of your oracle environment - for example the development data and control tables - over to a windows database server to test. Make a copy of your production environment, and test the configuration closely using an automated test solution - I believe that the windows/oracle solution will perform well, but I always thought that HP tried to match costs when it came to hardware (and the majority of costs are with Oracle rather than the hardware)....

Re: RE: Windows Server Hardware Recommendations

Jon,

We got quotes on equipment that could run HP-UX, and equipment that could run Windows; for "comparable" systems, HP's solution was about twice the cost of the Windows solution. I say "comparable" because you can't do a straight-across comparison of metrics like processor speed and memory -- Unix RISC and Intel servers make use of their available resources in different ways and with varying degrees of efficiency.

For us, our annual database costs have always been higher than our HP costs -- until this year; now our hardware is getting older and is off warranty, so we're getting closer to a balance between HP costs and Oracle costs. So for us, we're looking at our move to Windows as a strategic move to lower hardware/software support costs, plus standardize all our servers on the Windows platform.

Re: RE: Windows Server Hardware Recommendations

Don't forget, however, that there are some intangible benefits to Unix over Windows - including scheduling and the ease to identify broken kernels.

However, I think the move to Windows should certainly make some HP rep nervous. If they don't come down on their prices - then go for it !

Secondly - has anyone had a chance to see how fast an Opteron solution would be running Oracle yet ? I have some plans to get hold of a server-class opteron and run Oracle 9i on it with FreeBSD 5.1 (opteron optimized) at some point soon to see how fast it could be. I think AMD is on a long-term winner here, and could certainly challenge Intel - especially in the 64bit marketplace.

Re: RE: Windows Server Hardware Recommendations

Jon,

No argument on benefits of Unix over Windows.
However its become apparent to us that HP doesn't care about the "low end" market for HPUX. Their own solution is Windows based servers.
Since we're "not big enough" to rate direct attention from HP all we can do is request quotes from their "distributors". One response was a low end graphics workstation ...
HP is also failing on the support side. We are in a tier 2 city but due to cutbacks in service personnel and equipment inventories HP can't even meet contracted service response times on their printers - let alone PA-RISC servers!

I can only believe that HP is trying to make the numbers look good (by cutting back on inventories and staff).

Sorry all for the negative attitude but we used to love HP service. Now ...?