[NAV2016 Server Installation] three tiers installed in one Physical Server

aaronlou91

Good day,

I have a server spec as below:

CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2609 v3 1.9GHz,15M Cache,6C/6T (85W)
RAM: 32GB

C:\ 2 Units HDD RAID1 (for OS)
D : \ 4 Units HDD as RAID 1+0 (For SQL Data)
E:\ 2 Units HDD as RAID 1 (For SQL Log)

Given the two scenarios below, which will be the recommended "best practice" to go for given the total number of concurrent user is around 30. Otherwise, what will be the downside of such setup?

Scenario 1:
Having all three components (Application Server component, Database component, web server component) installed in this server.

Scenario 2:
Setup the Server as a Host for hypervisor.
Create two VMs:
VM1 for App + Web,
VM2 for Database.

Appreciate your advise. Thank you in advance. Cheers

Sowkarthika

Installing three components in same server will have better performance than having them in separate VMs.

frisch

If you would have asked me a year ago, I would have agreed Sowkarthika, but experience has proven me wrong. Although 32GB is limited, I'd still prefer the two virtual servers on a hypervisor setup. For two reasons:
- performance seems to be better when database server and app server are separated (on a virtual 10 gbit network connection), though no hard evidence;
- if you ever have hardware problems, virtual servers are easily migrated elsewhere, so less downtime. I migrated my webserver, fileserver, NAV server, AX server, database server and an extra Linux VM to a new bare metal machine in one Saturday morning, and then went out to a BBQ. With full reinstalls the whole weekend wouldn't have been enough.

Keep in mind you'll need double Windows licenses though.

aaronlou91

frisch wrote: »

If you would have asked me a year ago, I would have agreed Sowkarthika, but experience has proven me wrong. Although 32GB is limited, I'd still prefer the two virtual servers on a hypervisor setup. For two reasons:
- performance seems to be better when database server and app server are separated (on a virtual 10 gbit network connection), though no hard evidence;
- if you ever have hardware problems, virtual servers are easily migrated elsewhere, so less downtime. I migrated my webserver, fileserver, NAV server, AX server, database server and an extra Linux VM to a new bare metal machine in one Saturday morning, and then went out to a BBQ. With full reinstalls the whole weekend wouldn't have been enough.

Keep in mind you'll need double Windows licenses though.

Hi Frisch. Thank you for sharing your experience. It was indeed a useful one. Virtualization did a good job in DR.

I think we all know that clients can sometimes be very hard to please. Even with a given statement that Scenario A is better than Scenario B, what they want is a hard proven evidence. Until I can sort this out by carrying my own test. Or better yet, I will try consulting MS Engineer team to help me out on those statistic. Till then, I will share my results again.

Thanks guys.

aaronlou91

Sowkarthika wrote: »

Installing three components in same server will have better performance than having them in separate VMs.

It sounds kinda convincing. But i normally do get questioned: "Do i really need three tier for 3 concurrent user?". If that is the case what would be the answer? I do have some customer with 3-5 Concurrent users.

Kishorm

My answer would be that you have no choice since with NAV 2013 onwards the only option is 3 tier.