Enterprise Server Architecture design for 9.0 - Windows Platform

Curious to see how others have architected their Production Enterprise servers running on all windows servers for 9.0 (8.12 also)

My first question would be if you have seperated Batch and Logic processing or running both functions on one box. Since logic processing (BSFN) is very critical in a web only environment , my thought would be to seperate the logic server from the batch server as some batch jobs tend to be CPU hoggers and could affect CallObject Kernel response times.

Second would be around virtualization. Assuming the logic server and batch server are seperate, if one could be physical and the other virtual , would you recommend the logic server be physical or the batch server? I am inclined to go with the logic server being physical as Kernel response times have a greater impact on the end user experience, as opposed to a batch job that ran a minute longer (Of course there are exceptions depending on the type of UBE)

Also if I were to throw in the DB server also in the above mix , my first preference would obviously be that the database server be physical , then the logic server and then the batch server ?

I relaize there are other variables such as system up time (24x7 vs 16x5 etc) , high availability requirements etc which determine the architecture

If it makes it easier the above scenario is for a system running 200 users (about 140 concurrent) , 16 x 7

Thanks in advance for your opinions and inputs

Hi Ice_Cube,

We're pretty close to your client's size,
- 200+ users
- ~ 100 Concurrent

We use Oracle DB Std Edition - 11.02

Production Servers (all physical)
---------------------------------
Database - Dell 5260 2 Processor Dual Core Xeons, 32GB Ram
Enterprise/Logic - Dell 5470 2 Processor Quad Core 8GB
memory use 5-6 GB, CPU barely used
Batch - Dell 5470 2 Processor Quad Core 8GB
memory use 3-4 GB, CPU only measurable during MRP or similar batch jobs
Web Servers - 1 Dell 5560 2 Proc Quad Core 12GB
- 1 Dell 5470 2 Proc Quad Core 8 GB
OAS, 2 Production JVMs on each
All running Windows 2008 (most are R2)
----------------------------------

We've had this configuration close to 2 years.
Cost was actually pretty cheap even though we're actually overkill for our needs (we usually over spec boxes for 5 years of use).
What was expensive (for us) was the EMC box that our data is on. We use Raid 1+0 for the performance.
Its amazing how many times people will scope out a expensive server solution but only use a cheap RAID-5 for storage when the bang for the buck is in the I-O system - not the server. If we were to configure a new system today for sure there would be some SSDs in there.

Regarding VM - again if we were configuring a new solution today I'd be comfortable with everything VM except for the database server.

Pay attention to software licensing issues - particularly DBMS's. Oracle (and Microsoft?) licensing may require you to license for ALL of the processors in the physical host - not just the # processors allocated to the VM. This is a ever changing area so make sure your VM architecture doesn't cause major software license penalties down the road.

Hi Larry,

Thanks a lot for your response and sharing your configuration.

So the Logic server does not seem to be very CPU intensive , but more memory intensive , which I guess you could expect if running a large number of kernels. Are you running your COK's with multi-threading ON ?

Your web servers definitively have more memory than you will use for 2 JVMs on each server (assuming a max of 2 GB per JVM on 32 bit OAS). But I guess it leaves room to add more JVMs should you need to.

Interesting point about software vendors possibly requiring that you license all cores available on a host as opposed to those allocated to the VM. Will have them check with the vendor , Microsoft in this case as the system will be running Win 2008 R2 and SQL 2008 R2.

On your batch server what is the max concurrent jobs you have set your queues to allow ?

Point noted about storage, thanks.

Actually not a lot of kernels. We probably could easily increase what we have which is 30 COKs (average of 3 users per kernel).

COK Multi-Threading is ON.

Yeah - we know the web servers have a lot of unused memory. The guy configuring the boxes said it only cost a couple hundred more $ so we said why not.

Total # of possible concurrent jobs is 8. Realistically though the actual number is smaller (closer to 4/5) since some of those queues are for jobs that typically run only at night.

We're not heavy on Batch Jobs, only 600-700 a day average. Vast majority are things like Purchase Orders, SO Acks, Invoices, ECO Processing, Cycle Counts, etc that run in a second or 10.

Thanks again Larry